


It Was All His Fault

by hypersonicJD



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Betrayal, Broken Friendship, Death, Gen, Hospital, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28351404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypersonicJD/pseuds/hypersonicJD
Summary: Dakota decides to not forgive Cavendish after he used the memory deletion alien device and leaves him behind, how is Cavendish gonna take his leave? Is Dakota gonna be really happy with his decission? And what awaits the other characters?
Relationships: Balthazar Cavendish & Vinnie Dakota, Brick & Savannah (Milo Murphy's Law), Melissa Chase & Milo Murphy, Milo Murphy & Sara Murphy, Milo Murphy & Zack Underwood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14
Collections: Team Cavota





	1. Blaming One Another

Cavendish has left Dakota alone after temporarily erasing his memory in order to reach the alien spaceship that had abducted an unknown individual.

In Cavendish’s mind, his partner has betrayed his trust and considers him a nuisance more than a real friend, he needs to resolve this issue, he _needs_ to find this person as fast as possible. He fears that this unknown person could be getting hurt by alien devices, or worse… Be dissected for other wordly science.

Dakota on the other hand has woken up from his temporary memory wipe and already spent the entire morning trying to remember what happened.

“I just don’t get it… Where is Cavendish… Why did he leave? Does he hate me or something? Why wouldn’t he tell me anything about it? I don’t even remember where I was before he left… Everything is so fuzzy”

The American man says, grabbing his head, very confused and puzzled alongside feeling some deep concern for his friend’s well being and also worry considering that Cavendish might of gotten tired of him and just left.

As he searches the office that they have used for living and working, he notices that the memory wipe alien device was standing up on Cavendish’s desk.

“What the… Why is the memory wipe thing there?”

Dakota unfortunately starts to come to a very grim and worrying realization. Cavendish used the device on him to delete his memories temporarily, what he doesn’t remember is to what purpose.

“Cavendish did that to me…? But why? Why would he want me to not remember something? Or why even leaving... Gigh…” Dakota kneels down onto the ground, grabbing his head. A sharp pain starts to go through his mind, he is starting to remember somewhat, and he remembers Cavendish mentioning an alien space ship.

“Dakota, I saw it! An alien spaceship was abducting someone! We need to try and save them! Don’t you see!?”

Dakota’s pain slowly dissapears and he regains his composure, now understanding the situation, he is still saddened about it but most of his thoughts are now concentrated in anger.

“So… He thought I wouldn’t let him save that someone, from an alien spaceship that I didn’t even see, and that everybody else didn’t see either and he felt so hurt about it he erased my memory so I wouldn’t follow him!?”

Vinnie is now very pissed, he does not like to be played around like that, after all of the good things he has done for Cavendish, in his mind he has never returned the favor, he hasn’t done anything truly good for him as a thank you, he only thanked him once in the island and that was it. Nothing but: “Dakota you are so stupid, you shouldn’t put your track suit alongside my white dress shirts, why don’t you learn after I have told you so many times?” Or “Can you not eat at a time like this? We could get fired from time travel!”

He has made up his mind, he still cares for Cavendish but he is not gonna be very happy when he sees him again, he is still gonna search for him but he will let him know how unhappy he is about this situation.

In the normal resolution, Cavendish and Dakota would make up after all of this and everything would be back to normal. But this time however… Things are gonna be different.

The Octalians after many failed attempts of abducting Milo, decided to just give up and accept the fate that their planet was gonna be into, they didn’t deem it important anymore.

With this change, Cavendish even after spending 3 months of searching for that space ship, he was never able to find it, and his spirits were definetely down.

Dakota was feeling aimless alongside Doofenshmirtz. He wasn’t enjoying his job and he wasn’t really having a good chemistry with Doof in general.

After admiting defeat, Cavendish returns to the office that he and Dakota used for housing and working.

“Well… I did all of that… Just to not be able to find it… That person is now most likely way too far for me to reach them, or they might be…”

Cavendish on his own mind thinking he failed to save that individual he saw before, slams his fist into the wall, completely defeated on his search and feeling completely useless.

And on even worse luck, Dakota came back to the office and sees his friend, after so much time not being able to find it, he is just back out of nowhere.

Dakota wants to talk and make up with Cavendish, but his mind has started to make other plans.

_Wait… Why would I want to make up with him? He left me alone for 3 months… Not a single call, I called him to his phone many times, but he never responded, I waited for any kind of communication from him, a letter, a mail, something and I got nothing… I felt so sad and depressed on how he left him, and now he’s just back…? No, I won’t… I won’t get stomped on again, I will not make up with him… Not after what he did to me, he’s not gonna use me anymore._

Dakota just walks past Cavendish and sits down, he takes out from his jacket a banana to give himself something to eat, and Cavendish sees him, feeling some relief that his friend is safe and well.

“Dakota! How happy am I to see you!”

Dakota decides to give him a very despiteful look, and another idea comes into his mind.

“That’s cool but, who are you?” Dakota says with a condescending tone.

“And did you even get into this place? I don’t remember saying I would receive any visits or somethin”

Cavendish looks back at him confused and concerned, his partner is not recognizing him.

“W-what do you mean Dakota? It’s me, Cavendish, we are partners, remember? We are… I mean we were time travel agents, and now we were working for P.I.G, we have lived together in this office, and we are friends as well!”

Dakota keeps with the charade, pretending to gaze upon him in an odd manner.

“I dunno whatchu mean, I don’t remember any of that stuff, and Cavendish sounds like a fake name, just who the heck are you?”

Then it hits Cavendish, the memory wipe he did on Dakota might of actually deleted his memories entirely.

“Oh… Oh no no no no… T-this cannot be! Y-you have to remember me! You sacrificed thousands of time to save me from dying! You used time travel to do so and we even got fired!”

Dakota now is just annoyed and pissed off, he just cannot hear him anymore, to him this is Cavendish being a hypocrite, but he will still continue with his charade, and in fact will escalate it even higher.

“You know what? You just sound like a crazy old man! Time travel!? Aliens!? Do you think I’m stupid!? Eh!? I don’t even know why I came to this place! It just came as somethin natural, I dunno, but either way, I am getting far, far away from such a crazy man like you, going to another country or something. I dunno, but I do not want to stay here anymore!”

He finishes his banana and now decides to just leave, leave on a bus to whatever place he might end up on. Cavendish however tries to stop him from doing so by grabbing his arm.

“N-no! Vinnie please! You have to remember!”

“I DON’T HAVE TO REMEMBER NOTHIN, YOU ARE JUST CRAZY, LET ME GO OR I WILL CALL THE COPS ON YA!”

Cavendish is just appaled, confused and scared, he never thought on his mind that the alien device would wipe his friend’s memories and just cannot seem to grasp the situation.

He is just shocked and unable to move as he sees his best friend leave the place in a bus.

“That will teach him… Treating me like that for all of those years… I had enough, I will never, ever make up with him, it was all Cavendish’s fault” Dakota tells himself as he sat down on one of the bus seats.

The vehicle departs and Cavendish sees it happen with his own eyes.

“He… He left me… Because of my own fault… I did this to him… His memories are now messed up…”

Balthazar now just looks down into the ground, feeling ashamed and completely guilty of the whole situation. He starts to breakdown and cry, his sobs sound through the street and people look back at him puzzled as to why he is crying for so long.

The victim that was abducted on his mind is most likely dead, all of his search was for nothing and he messed up his friend’s mental health. He is no hero, he is a loser.

After a few more days pass, Milo, Melissa and Zack get concerned as they do not see Dakota nor Cavendish, so they decide to look for them.

“Cavendiiiiish! Dakotaaaaaaaa!” Milo yells out in the mall, trying to find them in that location, to no avail unfortunately.

“Cavendiiiiish, Dakotaaaaaaa, where are you! We just want to know if you guys are okay!” Says Melissa searching for them in a library, as she thought maybe Cavendish would have dragged Dakota along while they had some tea or coffee.

“Hey! Cavendish! Dakota! We are looking for you!” Zack as well helps on the mission for locating Cavendish and Dakota in the park, he walks for quite a bit, until he spots the British man sitting on a bench, just looking at the lake of the park.

“Oh, there he is! Cavendish!” Zack walks with a faster pace, reaching the man. Cavendish stares at the teenager with his eyes fully sunken in depression and sadness, he does not look good, as if he hasn’t slept properly.

“Oh… Cavendish… You.. Em… You don’t look very good, are you okay?” The afro kid asks concerned for Cavendish, in return he receives bitterness and condescendance.

“Yes. I am quite fine child, if that is everything you inquired I woud like you to leave me alone. I do not need your pity at this moment”

Zack does get slighty ticked off, but he knows Cavendish can get cranky and very mean spirited sometimes, so he just calms down and sits alongside him.

“That type of tone doesn’t really say things are all right Cavendish, seriously, what’s wrong? You look like you haven’t gotten sleep for days and your attitude seems even grumpier than usual” He states while looking at Balthazar.

“Hmph, like a kid would know what I have been going through” That bitterness shows up again, and Zack remembering how his mother treats her patients, just ignores the notion and keeps insisting on a discussion.

“Come on, you shouldn’t judge me or any kid like that, even some kids have gone to university and done other important stuff at a pretty young age. Maybe professor time was like that on his childhood”

Cavendish seems rather puzzled at the statement and inquires for an explanation.

“What do you mean? That doofenshmirtz was a genius kid or something?”

Zack just responds to the question with his own interpretation.

“Maybe, I don’t really know his life, but he must of had something special to even be able to come up with time travel in the first place, you just don’t wake up and say you are gonna invent time travel for everybody to use it, and even have other authorities be able to do so. Were you special in your childhood Cavendish?”

The brit’s expression now changes to being surprised, he wasn’t expecting that kind of question, and he is rather interested in answering.

“Well… I got quite a few prizes on spelling bee, I was able to recreate some high degreee technologies just by looking at them in pictures, and that gave me some trophies and awards in expositions for my school…” Remembering those little details actually makes him cheer up a bit, he does have special qualities even as a kid, and now he understands a bit better of what Zack was talking about.

“You… You might be right about kids being able to do more than what we adults give credit, I am sorry Zack” He says with a frown, exalting his guilt and remorse towards the boy.

“Don’t mention it Cavendish, but I am really concerned about you and Dakota, we haven’t heard a single thing from you guys for… A long time, especially you, I think we only heard Dakota say that you left him or something, and you were gone for quite a bit. It makes me glad to see you, but you really don’t look good”

Cavendish does a small retrospective and actually realizes that he was gone for months, months where he didn’t get in contact with anybody, he didn’t talk to Dakota, Milo, Melissa or Zack for so long.

“Yes… I was… Quite busy with something but… It didn’t work out the way I planned to and…”

Before he can continue, Zack interrupts him.

“T-that’s cool and all, but we should go back to Milo’s house, there you could tell us what happened, since we said we would meet up in a bit if we didn’t find you, okay?”

Balthazar shows some annoyance at being interrupted, but he does not hold on into this feeling for too long and accompanies Zack to Milo’s home.

Finally after some time, Milo and Melissa will be able to see Cavendish once more.

In the meanwhile, Dakota is eating rosted beef on a restaurant while also having the whole table filled with ice cream plates, some beverages and even more plates with food.

Dakota is going through with the idea of spending an entire day eating as much as he can to make his worries dissapear, unfortunately, he has been doing this for 3 days straight now, so this is his 4th day in an eating spree.

“Um… S-sir… Are you sure that isn’t too much food for you?”

“Noug! It isg fineg! Now bring me more meagt!”

The sunglasses wearing man demands with his mouth full of meat, chugging it all in one bite, the poor waitress just ends up being disgusted by this showing of awful manners and goes to attend another client to get the bad taste of her mouth.

Vinnie himself is just not behaving himself, he is just eating, and eating, and eating, drinking, and drinking and drinking. He barely has enough to pay for the meal he is having, as right now he is working as the official mascot of a fast food chain, since he has just the right build to wear the costume of the restaurant and his dancing moves are quite charming for the customers that pass by.

He wants to forget everything about his partner, he wants to just eat that worry away, like it never existed, but no matter how hard he tries, he just cannot seem to do so. He is too attached now.

_Why… Why can’t I just forget him!? He hurt me so many times, I sacrificied so many times for him and he treated me like trash, this was my decission… And I still can’t forget about him! Why!_

He cannot contain himself and hits the table with his fist, very displeased and annoyed.

As soon as he does so, the manager from the restaurant comes up to him, wanting to address his attitude.

“Hey Dakota, look… I know we said you could eat anything you could pay but… You are starting to get out of control, you need to calm down or we are gonna have to kick you out of the establishment”

This is it, Dakota won’t stand for this customer service anymore, this is insulting him and he won’t have any of it.

“What!? I am your frickin’ dancin’ mascot! If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have a public image! And you treat me like that! You are just a traitor, just like him!”

The manager shows his confusion by raising an eye brow, as Dakota never talked about Cavendish with them or even say why he wanted the job at all.

“JUST FORGET ABOUT IT. YOU CAN SHOVE THAT COW COSTUME UP YOUR BUTT, I AM LEAVING AND NEVER COMING BACK”

He says flustered, angry and frustrated, he takes his leave not before the manager demands for him to pay the bill.

“HEY! You can’t leave like that! You need to pay for the meal!”

“YOU WANT PAYMENT!? HERE’S YOUR STUPID PAYMENT!” He throws some coins and dollars into the ground, the exact amount needed for paying the bill, afterwards Dakota leaves and sees another bus.

This time the bus destination is to a very specific place that Dakota knows very well.

The ship port where he sends his other versions to the island.

This is it, the place where he will stick in and won’t get denied anything that he might want, the place where he can forget about his partner, since he will only see himself, and interact with himself only.

He takes the bus with determination, this will be his new home and nothing is gonna stop him from doing so.

_____________________________________________________________________________

After taking a lenghty walk, Zack and Cavendish finally make it to the Murphy’s residence, with Milo and Melissa waiting on the entrance, sitting on the little step that leads to the door itself.

“Zack! You actually found him! Good job!” Milo says very excited and happy to see Cavendish again.

“Hey Caven…Dish…” She stops her greeting to see the poor man just beaten up on a psychological level, she knows something is going on with Cavendish and she does not like what it seems to be. “You… Really aren’t looking good”

The brit instead shows his grumpy attitude and responds with some ill.

“Like you can look any better without fixing up that hair of yours”

Milo and Zack look at each other, very scared for their own safety and for Cavendish’s, as Melissa does NOT like that type of attitude, even less towards her hair.

“ _What_ did you say about my hair?” She crosses her arms, frowning intensively, she indeed did not like that comment at all.

“That your hair would be just as messy as Dakota’s, or even worse if you didn’t brush it in any way, you would look like a lion just waking up from their nap”

The girl is not gonna stand up for this kind of insult towards her and bites back with her own hurtful remark.

“Says the guy who looks like an old grumpy grandpa that is living on the past with that stupid coat, stupid top hat and stupid handlebar mustache, seriously, do you know how much embarrasment we go through every time someone sees us with you? You look so off and ridiculous with your style”

That actually did hurt Cavendish, he mostly ment his comments as venting towards one of Dakota’s aspects that he doesn’t like, but Melissa’s comments did get to him and looks down to his clothes, and even his mustache. He grabs his mustache feeling ashamed and beaten down, he really shouldn’t have messed with the girl.

“Here we are, trying to help you out, looking for you, and what is the first thing you do? Pick a fight with a teenager, that just roasted you badly by the way” She says feeling confident and high in her heels, this really doesn’t feel right with Milo however.

“Melissa, come on now, Cavendish must have been through a lot to even start acting like this, it’s not really how he acts normally, sure, he can be a bit condescending but he really isn’t bitter like this, there must be a reason as to why he is feeling so grumpy and fight provocative”

Milo after explaining to Melissa how Cavendish might be in some anguish, he looks back at him and notices how the brit is now just depressed after the girl’s harmful words.

“Oh boy…” Says Milo showing his concern.

“Oh would you look at that? You just made it worse Melissa” Zack states, scolding Melissa for her actions.

“Hey, he’s the one that started it!” She rebuttles trying to defend herself.

“That doesn’t mean you should of followed up you know?” Responds Zack also crossing his arms in dissaproval.

“Cavendish… What happened all of those months we didn’t see you? And why aren’t you with Dakota?”

Getting asked these questions does not jive well with Balthazar, he just stares into the ground with his hands resting on his lap, trying to contain his feelings. This does not work however, as his eyes start to water and tears being to come out from them.

“I… I wanted to help somebody… I ended up failing and… Dakota quite possibly lost a huge amount of his memories…”

The group of three looks in shock and in unison say: “WHAT!?”

Cavendish takes quite a bit to tell them about the situation but does so as best as he can in his current state of mind.

“So, let me recap, you saw someone getting abducted by an alien space ship, told Dakota that you saw it, he didn’t believe you, you tried to tell the agency you are working for about it, they didn’t believe you either, and when Dakota told you he basically wouldn’t go alongside you to save that abductee, you wiped his memory with an alien device so that way he wouldn’t follow you on your search for that space ship?” Zack replies to Cavendish’s story, wanting to make sure he got every single bit of detail and the man himself nods with still tears coming from his eyes.

“And you think you wiped his memory entirely?” Melissa also asks.

“Indeed… As he said he didn’t remember me at all, that I was crazy, and he parted on a bus, I didn’t really know where he did so, and I didn’t want to risk the possibility of getting arrested… I did that to my friend in order to protect him and I just messed up his brain… It’s all my fault…” He says still trying to contain his feelings, he does not want to breakdown in front of a group of children.

“Well… You had a good reason Cavendish, you only wanted to look out for that abductee, and also for Dakota’s safety, on your mind it was the right move, I think it wasn’t the right choice, but at the time you really couldn’t think of anything else to do” Milo responded, wanting to give Cavendish some solace on his situation. “He really wasn’t helping his case either, you mentioned to us too that your boss from time travel didn’t believe you when you told him about the pistachion invasion so you and Dakota felt how nobody in your world believed you then you told them the truth”

Cavendish looks at Milo and opens his mouth to respond.

“Indeed, when Dakota didn’t believe in me… I felt so betrayed.. He has been doing that to me for quite a while now… He hasn’t really trusted me in being able to take care of myself or being able to do anything on my own… After so many years of being together…”

The trio are able to see deeper into Cavendish’s mind and feel somewhat sorry for him, even Melissa, she just looks at him and his eyes tell her everything she needs to know.

“Hey… I’m sorry Cavendish, I really shouldn’t have said all of those things about you, I just tend to answer pretty harshly sometimes, but I didn’t mean anything of what I said, you are a great guy to have around even with your faults, everybody has them, and I feel Dakota should of believed in you, but you also need to understand that he didn’t really see that space ship, he just couldn’t trust completely in you, no matter how much he was your friend”

Cavendish gazes upon the girl, realizing that she might be right, he was being way too pushy about the subject with Dakota, he should of thought of how his friend would feel on getting told about an alien space ship.

“…Just like Zack said, I really shouldn’t judge so preeemtively…” Notes the brit feeling guilty of his actions towards the teenager group.

“It’s okay Cavendish, now, we need to figure out how we can find Dakota, you don’t know where the bus went Cavendish?” Milo asks, showing solidarity towards Balthazar.

“I… I was just too shocked and appaled that I didn’t even look properly where it was going, I just saw it take a right and dissapear after a few seconds…” He responds with his spirits still down from all the commotion.

“He couldn’t have gone too far off Cavendish, we can find him, we WILL find him, isn’t that right guys?” Says Murphy with his eyes lit up, full of determination on his mission, finding Dakota no matter the cost.

“Yeah!” Melissa spouts raising her fist into the air pumping herself up.

“Right!” Zack accompanies with confidence and determination as well.

And so, their search began all around Danville, asking every person they could find, searching for any clues Dakota might of left on his way out, or if he has returned in any way, shape or form to any places of the town they know off.

Meanwhile with Dakota, he gets off the boat and finally arrives at the island, walking down to where the whole group of his other versions are.

Some minutes pass by and eventually encounters himself with the entrance to the main area of the island.

“Well… Here it is… My new home, the place where I will probably stay for the rest of my life…” He says with some remorse and sadness in his voice, he knows this is probably not the right place for him to be in, but it’s probably the only place that will accept it for how he is, and for who he is, the knocks the bamboo made door and a Dakota wearing a teared up cop uniform opens the door for him.

The Dakota with cop uniform just looks at him confused, as he knows just as well as the other Dakota’s that they were banned from time travel, so no more Dakota’s can be created from it.

“Hey… W-what are you doing here? I thought we were banned from time travel, did you actually break the rules even more to save Cavendish?”

The original Dakota chuckles at his notion, he isn’t here because he saved Cavendish, he is here because he wants to get away from Cavendish.

“Nah, I just don’t wanna be with Cavendish anymore, I’m the real Dakota and I came here to just… Spend the rest of my life here”

“YOU WHAT!?”

A group of Dakota’s that were working on shoes and sodas overhear cop Dakota’s yelling and come closer to inspect on the situation.

“Hey, what’s going on? Why are you telling cop Dakota?”

“Yeah, what’s all the noise about?”

As more and more Dakota’s arrive to check out what is happening, the real Dakota decides to go where the big projector for watching Cavendish recorded videos is.

The whole island now pays attention to only him.

“Hey, glad all of you guys are here, I know it’s unexpcted for you to see another Dakota since we are banned from time travel, I ain’t another Dakota that was sent here because of Cavendish being saved. I am the true and original Dakota, and I sent myself here to stay away from Cavendish”

The whole group gasps in awe, they cannot believe what they have just heard, the original Dakota leaving Cavendish alone? It must be a joke.

“Why did you do that!? Didn’t we all care about Cavendish!?” Says a Dakota wearing a blue shirt and having a mustache, Dakota rebuttles inmediately as he wants to make himself as clear as possible.

“Because he has betrayed me, and I do not consider him my friend anymore!” Even more chaos starts to occur, some Dakota’s protest in disbelief, others show concern about the original Dakota just leaving Cavendish and not knowing why he would do such a thing.

“But he’s Cavendish! What could he have possibly done to make you feel this way?” A Dakota using sandals and a toga asks.

“He erased my memory temporarily with an alien device, so that I wouldn’t try to look for him, he… He just used me and dumpted me like a piece of trash! Supposedly because he saw someone get kidnapped in an alien space ship, when I didn’t even see the damn thing!” He expresses his anger, resentment and dissapointment.

“We don’t believe you! Cavendish would never do something like that! He’s our best friend!” A Dakota using cowboy clothing states, and many Dakota’s agree with his opinion.

“Yeah! He wouldn’t go as far as erasing your memory! You must have dreamed it or somethin’!”

More and more comments came in, not believing in the true Dakota’s words, funny enough, quite literally what Dakota did to Cavendish, with no believing in his friend’s words, Dakota however does not realize this and throws his anger towards his other self.

“WELL I DON’T CARE IF YA BELIEVE ME OR NOT, I AM GONNA STAY HERE AND NOTHING IS GONNA STOP FROM ME FROM DOING SO, I AM THE REAL DAKOTA AND YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO ME, IF IT WASN’T FOR ME NONE OF THIS ISLAND WOULD EVEN BE HERE” He yells out with his face fully red, he cannot see anything but red, he is feeling red, he is fumming red.

He has had enough, this is just gonna be his place and everybody is gonna like it.

“I WON’T ASK FOR ANY SPECIAL TREATMENT OR SOMETHIN’, JUST TO STAY HERE AND LET ME BE, ALL RIGHT!?”

The other Dakota’s know this is the true Dakota, as so many of them have changed differently thanks to the reason they were banished in the first place, and can tell this is the most passionate and true to form Dakota they have seen, so reluctantly they accept him as a new member and try to keep track of Cavendish with the recording cameras they got going on, as for Dakota himself, he does not care about any of that. He just gets his own room ment to be more prívate and secluded from the others.

_____________________________________________________________________________

A full month has occurred with Cavendish, Milo, Zack and Melissa trying to search for Dakota in all of Danville, with no positive results, and Dakota has just been doing what the other Dakota’s do, make shoes, make soda and just watch recordings of Cavendish, everybody sees that Cavendish has been searching for Dakota, luckily he has been around Milo’s group the entire way so they have been able to keep an eye on him.

Dakota has started to feel some guilt, but does not want to make up with Cavendish still, so he instead decides to write a letter to Murphy, he assumes Cavendish most likely explained the situation to him, and he wants to explain in his own words why he left and that is memories are fine.

“Dear Murphy, I am sorry for leaving you guys hangin’ like that, I just… Couldn’t stay in that place anymore, after Cavendish used that device on me… It was the last straw, he left me alone for 3 months… I did so many things for him… And he never repayed me… He never told me how proud he was… He never showed me any compassion or care. So in order to get him off my back, I told him my memories were messed up and well. I am feeling kinda guilty about that, but I didn’t feel like I had any other choice, it was to give… Some payback. So I hope you are able to safe keep this information and this letter, do not let Cavendish ever find out about all of this Milo, you can let Melissa and Zack know, but not Cavendish or anybody else. With fondness: Vinnie Dakota”

Finishing his letter, he sends it to the place where the mail man Dakota delivers it to the corresponding mail office.

A couple of days pass by and the letter finally arrives at Milo’s home and he picks it up after he wakes up on a Saturday, free of any school activities.

“Huh? A letter from an unknown location? I wonder who ended up writting this”

He goes to the table on his living room and opens it up, reading the contents inside, realizing how messed up the situation is with Dakota.

“Oh… This is bad, really really bad, Dakota lied… I gotta tell the others, we need to discuss this” Milo as soon as he spouts that sentence, grabs his house’s phone and proceeds to call Melissa and Zack.

They are able to arrive in a matter of minutes and get around the living room table.

“Ok so, you said Dakota lied to Cavendish in order to get away?” Zack inquires as he wants to know every single detail.

“Yup, he lied about getting his memories tampered because just wanted to leave Cavendish without having to say goodbye or something, and also do some payback towards Cavenndish after he used the alien thingy on him” Murphy states, Melissa in dissaproval just shakes her head and feels the need to throw out her piece.

“That is just messed up, first Cavendish doing that to Dakota, and then Dakota doing that to Cavendish, there must be something messed up going on with them right now, from what I can tell, they really weren’t like this before, they seemed to be pretty good friends” She says crossing her arms, very confused as to why they would act towards each other with so much hate, or at least not showing very friendtly behavior.

“Yeah… I think that after they got banned from time travel they haven’t been the same” Zack retrospects, thinking that might have a connection with their current state of mind.

“That could be it Zack, Cavendish really seemed to like time travel, and Dakota did so too, so that must have been a huge downer for them” The brown haired boy says, starting to try and think of something that could get them unbanned from time travel.

“Maybe we can do something about it, maybe we can speak with their boss or something and tell them what they have done for us”

The other 2 teenagers consider Milo’s idea and their eyes lit up.

“Yeah! We can totally do that! Maybe show them how they have changed our lives for the better with a drawing, a song, I dunno, something meaningful” The afro teenager suggests, he might be able to sing a special song with lyrics saying good things about Cavendish and Dakota.

“We could write it in like 2 days and try to speak to their boss, make a performance and see if he likes it, and if that doesn’t work, we can try something else” Melissa gets up from the table and seems pumped for the idea, they haven’t really gotten to sing in quite a bit and the idea of even writting the lyrics gets her excited.

Their brain storm is interrupted however, as they hear the door bell from Milo’s home and Sara opens the door.

“Oh, hey Cavendish, how are you doing?” She welcomes Cavendish and he responds cordially.

“Hello and good morning Sara, can I home in? I wanted to speak with Milo as we still need to look for Dakota”

“Oh sure, he’s in the living room”

Milo and the others overhear the conversation so they whisper to themselves quickly.

“Guys, we cannot let Cavendish find out about this just yet, what are we gonna do?” Zack whispers as he shows concern and worry.

“Hmmm… Just keep going with the plan of finding Dakota, and while we are in our break times, we start to write about that song, and see if we can Cavendish to contact us with his boss or something” Melissa explains, trying to come up with a plan in order to hide their intentions.

“Yeah, that sounds good Melissa, we’re gonna do that then” Milo finishes the small conversation on whispers and everybody sits properly in order to receive Cavendish.

“Hello everybody” Cavendish says while tipping his hat giving the trio a proper greeting.

“Hi Cavendish!”

The three teenagers say in unison without even realizing it and the brit finds it charming.

“Hehe, quite the syncronization you have” The brit says with a small smile hiding slighty within his mustache.

“Say, should we resume our search for my dear friend Dakota?” He asks, he is apparently feeling rather calm today and the trio are surprised about it.

“Uh… Sure Cavendish, but I kinda wanna ask, why do you seem so calm today?” Zack responds and Balthazar corresponds to the question.

“Well, I actually had some good sleep for once, my breakfast was quite tasty today too, and I saw the birds sing while they were on their nest alongside their babies, quite the tender scene” He explains showing his calm demeanor today and the group seem to also calm down with his attitude, it seems to be contagious.

“Well, that is good to hear Cavendish, we just need to have something eat and we can try to look for Dakota again” States Milo with a smile, full of optimism and charm, just like always.

That whole good energy is gonna go to waste however, as Cavendish notices the letter from Dakota that is lying on the table.

“Oh? What’s this? A letter?” Cavendish grabs it without even asking if he could read it and the trio realize.

“Oh no” Zack says with his face turning into fear.

The brit reads the whole thing and for a few seconds just looks shocked, nothing else, nothing more.

“…”

Some more seconds pass by and his true feelings burst out however.

“THAT PIECE OF… HE LIED TO ME, HE LIED TO ME ABOUT HIS MEMORY, HE JUST WANTED TO LEAVE ME ALONE AND NEVER COME BACK. I CAN’T BELIEVE HE WOULD DO THAT TO ME, ALL OF THOSE THINGS HE SAID WITH HIM CARING ABOUT ME AND SUCH, THEY WERE ALL A LIE TOO! HE DIDN’T CARE FOR ME AT ALL! THIS IS NOT WHAT A FRIEND DOES! HOW COULD HE! HOW COULD HE…!”

Cavendish just explodes, exalting all of his anger, and breathing heavily as he does so, flailing his arms and moving around quite a bit on his rage, and his breathing seems to get heavier and heavier as he uses more of his energy.

Zack finds this odd, as Cavendish is breathing way more heavily than he should.

“Cavendish, s-stop, you shouldn’t be doing all of that, I know you are angry but you really need to take a hold of yourself” Says the boy while looking at Balthazar, who is just filled with rage and with his face fully red.

“I…! I…!” Then suddendly, Cavendish holds his right arm very tighly and sees to struggle to keep himself standing. Seeing this kind of behavior makes Zack realize what is going on.

He pulls out his phone and dials a very specific number:

9 1 1

He keeps his eyes glued into Cavendish, who is still breathing very heavily and starts to feel dizzy.

“Wow… Cavendish are you all right?” Asks Melissa very alarmed and scared, she does not understand what is going on with the British man.

Cavendish cannot answer and instead stares in pain at the teenagers, as if he is trying to ask for help with his eyes, he puts his hand that was on his arm towards his chest and falls to the ground.

“Cavendish!” Yells Milo as he sees the man lying on the ground.

“Hello!? This is an emergency! We have somebody going through a heart attack! We need an ambulance now!” Zack screams to his phone in urgency, he provides the direction for Milo’s home and Melissa alongside Milo try to help Cavendish.

“Zack, Cavendish is having a heart attack!?” Milo inquires on Zack, who just seems concerned about the situation.

“Yeah, let me check his vitals Milo” He says while he checks for Cavendish’s pulse, which seems to still be going but slowly. He then proceeds to check on the man’s breathing and it seems heavy and slow, not a good sign.

Even worse, the man is unconcious already.

“Milo, we need to keep checking on Cavendish, if his heart goes limp, we need to revive him with CPR” Zack says trying to make Milo understand how severe the situation is, he suddendly turns towards Melissa and opens his mouth to talk.

“Melissa, you go outside and wait for the ambulance, we need to make sure they can get here as soon as possible, let the door open and just keep watch of everything outside, okay?”

“Right away!” Melissa shouts as she runs towards the exit and opens the door, she then waits standing on the sidewalk.

“Oh no! Cavendish!” Sara comes down from the stairs seeing the poor man lying on the floor.

“W-what happened to him!?” She says completely terrified.

“He’s having a heart attack Sara, we are gonna need you here to help us out whenever the paramedics arrive and they need to take Cavendish to the hospital, since you are the oldest from us and your parents aren’t here right now” The afro teenager tells Sara, and she nods feeling very panicked and scared for Cavendish’s life.

She is gonna be even more worried, as Zack does not feel his pulse anymore.

His face turns into panic as well knowing this is absolutely not a good sign for his survival.

Zack uses the training he has done with his mother multiple times, and attempts to do CPR on Cavendish’s chest, going with pumps of his hands in quick succession, leaving very little down time between the pumps, and making sure he isn’t pressing too hard onto his body.

After 10 seconds of pumping, he is able to hear Cavendish’s heart and his pulse comes back.

Zack sighs in relief and takes the sweat off his forehead with his hand.

“That was way too close… I think he’s gonna make it” He says with some relief, and Milo alongside Sara also seem to be relieved.

1 more minute passed and the paramedics finally arrived.

Sara alongside Milo and Zack help the paramedics to get Cavendish on the medical bed, they take him into the ambulance and drive off.

Fortunately a taxi was just passing by and they are able to get in.

“Sir please, we need to follow that ambulance, one of our friends got a heart attack and we need to stay with him” Sara says trying to convey how desperate her situation is, and the driver nods, driving closely to the ambulance.

They finally arrive at the hospital and see Cavendish be unloaded from the ambulance to the emergency room.

“Cavendish…” Milo says under his breath, exalting concern for the British man.

Meanwhile in the island of the Dakota’s, one of them comes into the room of the real Dakota running with extreme hurry and exasperation.

“Hey! Boss! Boss!”

“What?” Says the original Dakota confused as to why this Dakota is so anxious.

“It’s Cavendish! He’s in the hospital! He got a heart attack and we have it recorded!”

“WHAT!?” This got the real Dakota by surprise and he heads out to the big monitor where they can see the recordings they got.

Every single Dakota in the island is there and witnesses how Cavendish arrived to Murphy’s home, he seemed to be in a good mood after so many days of him being completely depressed and distraught over not being able to find Dakota.

“It was the letter… The letter that the real Dakota sent!” Spouts one of the mustachio’d Dakota’s.

“N-no… T-this can’t… This can’t be!” Screams the original Dakota, with the guilt of his actions starting to really crush him, he grabs his hair feeling lost and in dispair.

“I sent that letter in the first place so that Milo and the others wouldn’t feel sad for me… To give them some peace… And Instead Cavendish saw it and might be in danger…” He repeats to himself while he is fighting to grasp reality, as he comes back to regain his sense of reality, he hears one of the Dakota’s from the island yell at him.

“If he doesn’t make it through this, you will be the one to blame!”

“Yeah!” The other Dakota’s follow up affirming the statement.

Some of the other Dakota’s are able to rearrange the camera system to make them function in real time, although they have deactivated the cameras as they are a bit too close to the emergency room where Cavendish is being healed.

The minutes pass, and the doctor arrives to the group, who were sitting down in the hallway’s chairs.

“D-doctor? How is he?”

The doctor seems rather calm and while looking at his notes he starts to talk.

“Well, he did indeed suffer a heart attack, but he was able to make it, he should be in rehabilitation really soon, they are just making sure he is completely stabilized”

The group rejoice and express their relief.

“Oh thank god, I thought he wasn’t gonna make it” Says Sara while keeping her hands together.

“Yeah… That was quite the scare” Melissa states as she sighs.

“If Zack wasn’t here, maybe he wouldn’t have made it” Murphy says as he looks with fondness towards Zack.

“Aaaww come on, it was nothing Milo, it’s the least I could of done to help” Wanting to demonstrate modesty, Zack downplays what he did for Cavendish, and Milo just smiles at him for offering his help at all.

The dakota’s rejoice and the original Dakota feels relaxed, Cavendish was able to make it through.

Milo and the others wait a bit longer for Cavendish to be ready for visits, and in 30 minutes the preparations were finished.

A nurse appears and approaches them.

“Hello, if you want to visit your friend he is ready for visitors, just try to be careful okay? We don’t want him to get another heart attack” She says as she shows her friendliness towards the group.

“Hehe, thank you and we will try to keep him calm” Milo responds with a smile and the pack go Balthazar’s room, he is resting peacefully with his eyes closed.

“Aawww, just look at him, he looks so cute when he’s asleep” Sara states as she looks at the brit.

They approach closely to the man and Milo tries to say hello.

“Hi Cavendish, how are you feeling?”

Cavendish opens his eyes and sees the whole group.

“Milo… Melissa… Zack… Sara… Hello” He says with a weak smile on his face, he is low on energy and is not very capable of emoting much.

“You had us going there… We really thought you were gonna…” Said Melissa rubbing her forearm and looking to another side.

Cavendish’s eyes just sink slighty as a thought comes into his mind.

_Oh… Dear girl, if only you knew the whole story…_

“I’m… Sorry for causing all of you trouble again, I am a terrible friend” Cavendish spouts, not really feeling happy with himself as he sees himself as a nuissance for his friends.

“Cavendish, don’t say that, we weren’t expecting you to have a heart attack and well… We care about you” Milo responds while grabbing Cavendish’s hand.

Cavendish in return smiles a bit more as he feels Milo’s affection and friendship.

Zack rubs the back of his neck in shame, as he wants to tell Cavendish something.

“Hey… Uh… Sorry we didn’t tell you about the letter… We… We wanted to keep you happy, and we had other ideas to try and make it so that you can get your time travel job back, that was when you and Dakota were happy and uh…” Zack has spilled the beans and realizing it, feels even more embarrased and dumber.

“You… You really wanted to do that for me?” Cavendish asks, feeling moved by the plan he just got told they wanted to do.

“Well… Yeah, you were happier before you got fired, and you and Dakota were friends, you guys started to act a bit…. Weirder when you got into that alien stuff job” The brown haired boy tells Cavendish, and Cavendish desires to state his own state of mind.

“Dakota… Well, I wanna say something, I have… Always wanted to be a hero, because of professor time, when I saw the documentaries about him in school, how if it wasn’t for time travel maybe humanity would of ceased to exist, that he was seen as a hero by everybody, and everybody admired him for what he did for others, he was a very passionate and good person… And I wanted to be like that, I desired to become a hero to protect others, to make this world a better place, to know my existence had some meaning, at first I tried to be a lawyer but… That didn’t work out, and I felt very opressed by my parents, so I went on a tangent about becoming a pianist… If i’m being honest with myself, it was mostly a distraction for my own sake, I loved the instrument and how it felt in my hands but… It wasn’t what I wanted to do, I wanted to be a hero, and I knew I wanted to do that, so in my mind if I wasn’t sure I was gonna be lawyer, I had to study something else, so while I was doing my law studies I was also looking into time travel through all of those years, when I was 35 I was ready for my first test and… That’s when I met him… That’s when I met Dakota…”

Cavendish tells the story of his past while looking at the teenagers and Sara, he then resumes his story as he wanted to take a brief pause.

“We… Weren’t very… Keen on working with each other at first, but I did so because I felt with Dakota a new connection… Something I never felt before, I don’t quite know how to describe it but… It was something special, and he also would up for any challenged that involved saving somebody, no matter what. He was lazy and disorganized on the missions, we failed so many of them, but we just kept trying… And trying, and trying… He was a good company for me… He was like my opposite, he just… Clicked somehow with me and he truly showed how much he cared for me, he… He gave up so many things in order to… Keep me happy, to keep me going… Until…” After remembering Dakota so fondly, his hand starts to curl into a fist, showing his anger once more.

“Until he abandoned me… Making me think I hurt him forever… That he would never be same… Only for it to have been a lie… After I tried to do a good action for another person, after I tried to be a hero, what I always wanted to be, and what HE knew what I wanted to be… He… He’s…” Cavendish cannot contain his emotions anymore and the group try to stop him, but it has become way too late.

“HE IS AN UNGRATEFUL SON OF A… Gigh…” He starts to breathe heavily again but this time he faints way faster and his heart rate monitor shows a single straight line, alongside that horrific beep sound.

As soon as this happens, Zack gets into the door and calls for help.

“HELP! THE PATIENT IS GOING INTO CARDIAC ARREST!”

The paramedics run towards the room and Zack grabs everybody’s hands.

“Guys, we need to get out of here at this instant, we need to give them as much space as soon as possible!” He gets everybody out of the room while Milo looks into Cavendish who is on the bed with his eyes closed and not respoding, he tries to reach out to him with his hand.

“Cavendish!”

The doctor closes the room with the door and try to reawaken Cavendish.

Some minutes pass by, to the group it feels like hours and they are extremely afraid.

In the island of the Dakota’s everybody is worried again, fearing that Cavendish might not wake up again.

“Cavendish! Please! You gotta make it! We trust in ya!” One of the Dakota’s says, the cameras were disabled again as they do not want to disturb with the medical equipment’s electromagnetic waves, they are just waiting for the cameras to be turned on again.

3 more minutes pass by, until the door is opened, the expression of the personel is different however.

“Doctor, he was able to make it again right?” Milo asks, genuinely afraid but optimistic, the doctor however has a different answer.

“… I’m sorry kid...” The personel is dissambled and only one nurse stands by inside the room, the group enter and see Cavendish with his eyes closed, no breathing is heard, no medical equipment is heard, it is pure silence.

“C-cavendish…?” Milo says as he approaches the man.

“N-no…” Sara whispers while she puts her hands on top of her mouth.

“T-t-this can’t be…” Melissa says as her voice breaks.

“B-but… H-he cannot possibly be…” Zack also spouts, the group gazes upon the brit’s body.

Milo tries to touch Cavendish and does so, coming to terms with the reality.

Cavendish has passed away.

“Cavendish…” The boy whispers as tears come from his eyes, he lets his emotions get the best of him, and he hugs the man.

The island of the Dakota’s witnesses this as well and the Dakota’s are completely destroyed.

“CAVENDISH!” A group of Dakota’s cry out with tears coming from their eyes and running down their faces.

“WHY! ALL OF THOSE TIMES WE SACRIFICIED OURSELVES… IT WAS ALL FOR NOTHING! WE COULDN’T SAVE HIM!” Another version of Vinnie says feeling completely powerless and without any meaning.

The original Dakota just stares in silence, that image… That image of his friend being dead in a hospital bed, he never saw it before, Cavendish never died that way before, but it is now gonna linger on his mind forever, it will haunt him forever, and he himself breaks down even worse than the other Dakota’s, kneeling to the ground with his view completely lost, with tears also pouring down his face.

“Cavendish… I never… I never wanted this… I only wanted to leave because I felt hurt… But I… I didn’t know… I thought this was gonna be okay… I thought…” He punches the ground with all of his might on a single punch and stares down.

“I’m sorry…”

His actions have caused this tragedy, and after crying their pain away, the other Dakota’s notice so.

“If it wasn’t for this guy, this wouldn’t have happened!” The whole island starts to approach the original Dakota, feeling enraged and saddened, their best friend is now dead and they do not have the means to fix it anymore.

“You caused all of this!” Another Dakota states while signalizing at the original Dakota.

“No! That isn’t true! Cavendish erased my memory! He dumped me!” The original rebuttles fighting back against the accussations.

“That doesn’t mean you should of left Cavendish alone and lie to him like that!” A Dakota wearing a space suit counter arguments the original Dakota, while another Dakota brings up a very, very dark comment.

“Since you failed… I think it’s time we change the rules around here…” A Dakota with a darker clothing scheme using his previous black jacket and having an eye patch on his right eye approaches the original one and holds him by his track suit’s collar.

“I don’t think you deserve to live anymore…”

The whole island seems to agree with screams of: “Yeah! He’s right! He doesn’t deserve to keep his life! He cost us Cavendish!” and they start to carry the original Dakota towards a far away place of the island.

“Hey! Come on guys! Let me go!” The original Dakota complains and tries to get away, the Dakota’s however are holding him with a lot of force, making it impossible for him to escape.

A few meters later, they arrive at the place they wanted to keep the original Dakota at and throw him into a cage made out of bamboo.

“Agh!” He gets up inmediately from the cage as he sees the other Dakota’s lock it up. “Hey! You can’t leave me here! I am the original Dakota! I deserve to live for even being able to create you!” The group ignore and go back to the main area of the island.

Dakota feels frustrated, until he hears somebody on his back say: “Ooohhhh… Food…”

He has been caged alongside cannibal Dakota.

He tries to get away from him but Cannibal Dakota just approaches slowly, having Dakota pin himself into the farthest corner of the cage.

“H-help! Guys! Please! You cannot do this to me!”

After he says these words, only screams of agony and pain can be heard, they echo through the jungle and buildings of the island.

Until they stop.

A harsh silence falls over the hospital and the island.

Their fate has been sealed and nothing will change it now.


	2. A Slightly Brighter Future

The island of the Dakota’s has gathered everybody that is on the island and the Dakota with jacket and eye patch prepares himself to give a speech.

“Hey, hey, everybody, I know we are deeply shaken by the loss of Cavendish, and we also do not have the original Dakota with us anymore, I know things are bad” While he speaks, the others are still tearing up, some others are trying to help the Dakota’s that are still crying with some solidarity, offering some sodas or new shoes, even some are offering parts of their food to share together, and others are just lost in thought, they just cannot get over what has happened today.

Eye patch Dakota sees this and gets his act together, asserting a more dominant tone.

“Hey! Just listen to me for one second!” Every Dakota now pays attention to him and some of the wheeping Dakota’s stop their sobbing.

“I understand it is not gonna be easy to rebuild our mental health, our entire purpose has been demolished, Cavendish is no longer alive, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a new purpose”

The Dakota’s speak with themselves, trying to figure out what he means, and a random one from a group asks something.

“What do you mean with a new purpose? What is your plan?”

Eye patch Dakota adjusts his jacket and responds to the question at hand.

“We are gonna live for Cavendish, not to keep protecting him, but to uphold his legacy, his memories, what he shared with us, what he ment to us, we don’t need Cavendish to be alive to be able to do that, we basically gave our life away for him to stay alive, and he was able to for quite a lot longer than what destiny had planned or somethin’” He puts his hand on his chest and continues his speech. “If we can channel that energy from Cavendish… To try and be good people, to try and see if we can help others without risking our island, then we will be able to let his dreams and hopes be alive. He might not be able to complete his own dream anymore, but who says we cannot pick up from where he left!”

This whole speech is actually able to cheer up the island, they feel this is what Cavendish would of wanted them to do if he was ever gone.

“Yeah! We can do it!”

“For Cavendish!”

_____________________________________________________________________________

In the year 2175, a time agent is running towards Mr.Block’s office as fast as he can, since he has some pretty big news in general for him.

“Sir! Sir! Sir!” He knocks on the door panting from all the running he just did a moment ago.

Mr.Block answers the door somewhat annoyed.

“What do you want Xavier?”

The man panting shows a piece of paper to Mr.Block that notifies him of something important.

“Sir, I just got informed that one of our former agents has passed away”

Mr.Block shows amusement at what he is hearing and inquires on more information.

“So, who was it Xavier? Who has left this world?”

The agent gulps and tugs his collar, feeling very nervous and anxious about saying that person’s name.

“It was… Ba-Balthazar… Cavendish… Sir…”

Mr.Block’s eyes widen but also show some anger at the news, he really didn’t want to hear that name again.

“Cavendish!? That stupid useless third agent!?” He yells out with frustration.

“Y-yes sir… H-he died from a heart attack”

“A heart attack huh? Well, he did seem old but not THAT old to just die from a heart attack, do you have any more information about his death?”

“Not yet sir, we need for more details to come out, but so far we know a bunch of kids were looking out for him, it seems they were friends”

Mr.Block laughs at this fact, as he thinks it is pathetic to have some children be your only friends.

“Ha! Just having some children look over you? It really was a good decission to get him out of the organization alongside that lazy bump of Dakota” He pauses for a moment and thinks about why Dakota wasn’t with Cavendish. “Hey, do you know why Dakota wasn’t with him? It’s kinda strange that he isn’t with him, they were friends or something”

Xavier checks on his notes, and he doesn’t see any mention of Dakota on them.

“I do not know sir, we would need to do more research around that, quite literally I just got notified of this 10 minutes ago”

Mr.Block actually thinks somewhat deeply about that fact, he finds it extremely odd that Dakota would not be alongside Cavendish if he was in the hospital and died from a heart attack, as Mr.Blocks assumes Cavendish died on a hospital bed.

“Very well then, try to get his body and transfer it to this time, try to also look for Dakota and see why he wasn’t with Cavendish”

The agent nods and goes right away into doing the orders that Mr.Block assigned to him.

In the present, Milo and the others are still crying over Cavendish’s death, not being able to deal with it properly.

“Why did it have to happen!? Just why!?” Zack asks with anger and resentment.

“That stupid… If Dakota didn’t leave him like that none of this would of happened!” Melissa shouts out in frustration.

As they keep themselves in the room, the nurse gets called from a place of the hospital and heads out.

“Excuse me kids, I need to attend something very quickly”

She exits the room and goes to her appointment.

A few minutes later, she comes back looking somewhat puzzled but still on duty.

“I’m sorry children, but I have to ask you to leave, your friend’s body needs to be transfered”

“What?” Milo asks with tears still flowing through his eyes.

“His family wants to see him again, we will hand him over to a mortuary and they will deliver his body to them, I am very sorry. In terms of legal importance, the man’s family matters more than close friends”

“B-but… He’s from…” Zack wants to say where Cavendish is from, but Melissa stops him from doing so and shakes her head, signaling that he shouldn’t say anything about time travel or the future.

After they are forced to leave the room, they see a man using a black suit and a black tie alongside black sunglasses.

“Okay… Let’s take ya back Cavendish” He says as he picks up the brit’s body gently and takes it over his shoulder, carrying him.

“W-wait!” Milo says at the man.

“I’m sorry kiddo, he has to go back where he belongs” The agent says.

“I… I know but… Can’t you take us with you? We know where he is from… We wouldn’t say anything… We just… Just want to see him get… Buried…”

The agent looks back at Cavendish with some sadness, he knows that Cavendish ment a lot to him even without really getting to know Milo.

“I can’t really do that kid, it would mess with… That stuff, if you know what I mean, it would be a violation. I’m really sorry, I promise you, we will treat him with respect and care”

The agent afterwards leaves the hospital with Milo wanting to stretch his hand one more time as he doesn’t want to see his friend leave this timeline, but Sara tries to comfort him by giving him a hug.

“I know Milo… I’m really sad too…”

Both of them just get very deeply involved into the hug and Zack and Melissa join them.

To the group, this is probably the last time they will see Cavendish ever again and they try to comfort each other with their own affection and understanding. It is the only choice they have now.

In the meanwhile, the agent tasked with looking for Dakota is currently on a helicopter, trying to see any trace of him, and he seems to be flying close to the ship bay where the Dakota’s are taken to the island, there one of the members of the helicopter crews detects a disturbance in time waves.

“Hey, something is going around this area, there seem to be trails of time travel” One of the other members says to Xavier.

“Huh? Time travel trails? Maybe Dakota could be around here, we need to get done and investigate”

Inmediately they land the helicopter in a far away place and start to head out towards the boat they detected the time travel trails are present.

“Oh hello, would you guys like to have a boat trip to a beautiful island?” Says the blond captain with a smile, greeting what he thinks are customers.

“We do not wish to do so sir, we actually wanted to ask you something” Responds one of the members of the crew while another one searches inside one of his suit’s pockets for an ítem.

“Oh really? What is it?” The blond man asks feeling curiosity and ready to answer anything they want from him.

“Have you seen this man?” The agent that was searching on his pocket pulls out a full face picture of Dakota and shows it to the captain.

“Oh yeah, he actually used to appear quite frequently for trips to the island, he seemed like a nice guy, although he was kinda annoying sometimes” He declares with a smile and remembering Dakota fondly.

“To which island?” Xavier inquires.

“Right over there, it is a desserted island perfect for exploration, I wouldn’t really advice living on it though” He signals to the exact direction of the island of the Dakota’s, and the crew get ready to head to the location, not before Xavier looks back.

“Thank you for your cooperation sir” He then sprints alongside his crew and the helicopter lifts off.

On a few hours of flight, they are able to spot the island and the time travel device is just going off to the máximum capacitiy it has.

“Sir! The anormality of space time continuum is way too strong on this place! This must be it!” The member yells out to Xavier, who seems very determined in completing his mission.

As they start to head down, the crew are able to see tons and tons of Dakota’s, this sight makes them look very worried and shocked.

“W-what the… There are so many of them… I think we are gonna need reinforcements” Tells Xavier to the team and they finally land in a safe spot. Afterwards they make a call for reinforcements and they wait for their arrival.

In the meantime with the Dakota’s, many of them were able to spot the helicopter and know the helicopter is from BoTT due to the shape and technology it was using.

“Hey! A BoTT helicopter just came into the island! They are into us!” One of the Dakota’s yells out in panic, the other Dakota’s do the same and express their fear.

“Oh no no no no, this is bad, they have found us, they are gonna try and kill us!” Another version says feeling unprepared and anxious, not a single Dakota was expecting something like this to happen.

That doesn’t mean it is gonna stop their new leader however.

“Hey! Stop panicking people!” The eye patch Dakota shouts out attempting to calm down the situation. It is able to work somewhat as the Dakota’s stop running all over the place.

“We have to fight for our beliefs! We have to claim this land as ours! I know BoTT has better equipment and preparation, but we would be doing a deservice to Cavendish and to our own little community here if we didn’t do so, we need to oppose them, they want to undo everything we have done, we cannot let that happen, so, whenever they try to destroy us, we will be ready!”

The Dakota’s feel the strenght of the speech, and are ready to defent their island, and it is quite a good thing, as the reinforcements from BoTT have arrived and are on their way towards the main area.

As soon as they reach the entrance, they see the Dakota’s using their tiki masks, trying to look menacing.

“All right, I see what you guys are trying to do and I have an idea of what’s going on here, we do not want to fight, we only want to speak to the original Dakota, he has to come back” Xavier tells his intentions to the other Dakota’s who look at each other, being fully aware of what happened to the real Dakota.

“He isn’t alive anymore” Says the eye patch Dakota while he approaches Xavier with his arms behind his back.

“Look, I know you want us to be deal with as we are a time anomaly, we shouldn’t exist, but we want to exist, the original Dakota is not here anymore and we really can’t take it back, and if you did so, you would be in trouble with BoTT”

Xavier just seems to be somewhat concerned about this fact, he wanted to contact the real Dakota in order to try and ask him why he wasn’t with Cavendish, so he thinks maybe addressing this could solve that mystery.

“Okay, that’s fine, we mostly wanted to know why Dakota didn’t go to see Cavendish when he had that heart attack, since everybody in BoTT thought they were friends”

The eye patch Dakota seems saddened by this comment, as he remembers Cavenidish’s death again.

“Well… Cavendish apparently used a memory alteration device or somethin’. He basically messed with the original Dakota’s ability to remember stuff, it was about an alien spaceship abducting someone, as both Cavendish and Dakota were working for an alien detention agency, P.I.G”

“P.I.G huh?” Repeats Xavier, feeling curious about that association. He stops to think for a momento but snaps out of it and resumes his questions.

“So, basically Dakota didn’t feel right with what Cavendish did?”

“Yup, he felt hurt and betrayed, so he left Cavendish and went to this island to live the rest of his life, we didn’t really approve of any of that, since we have been other past versions of Dakota who couldn’t protect Cavendish, as Cavendish died many, many times before, we were sent to this island in order to not raise any awareness of what we were doing, we found out about Cavendish’s death here, and… The rest of the Dakota’s basically killed the original one, as we felt he didn’t deserve to be alive anymore”

The other agents are shocked to hear all of this, in their mind, they couldn’t have imagined any of this happening to Cavendish or Dakota, and some other agents are getting concerned, as this sheer number of Dakota’s could present a problem in general.

“And where is he?” One of the members asks.

“He’s on the cage where we keep cannibal Dakota in, cannibal Dakota is probably still eating him but he must be dead already”

Xavier know being fully aware of the dark nature that these copies of Dakota’s have shown, he does not want to hesítate anymore, he knows the reason why the original Dakota didn’t appear alongside Cavendish, he knows why the Dakota’s exist on this island, and now he knows the fate of the original Dakota.

So he decides to end all life present on this island, they shouldn’t be here, they don’t have a reason to stay here anymore.

“Well, that explains a lot of things, but I do gotta say i’m sorry, I know I said I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody but… You guys are a liability, you are way too risky and dangerous, you need to dissapear, as you aren’t even needed anymore” He points his phazor gun at the eye patch Dakota and shoots at him, luckily he is able to dodge the shot and hides in a crate.

With this shot fired, the war begins with the whole island of Dakota’s against a huge number of BoTT agents.

Many of the Dakota’s grab spears, swords, and shields made out of bamboo, alongside javelins and poison needles.

These are good tools indeed, but the BoTT are equipped with time based weapons that are able to stop time, make it go forward, backwards for small intervals, laser pistols, phazon shotguns that are capable of destroying things on a molecular level, the Dakota’s are just simply outmatched in every single category, and it shows.

They are able to hurt some of the agents with their equipment, and even kill like 5 agents but in a matter of minutes, the Dakota’s are just falling one after another.

Injuries, loss of limbs, blood splattering all over the place, time erasure and vaporization are many of the things that happen on the battle.

In just about 2 hours, only one Dakota remains, eye patch Dakota.

“Gigh… D-damn it… We… We did all of this for Cavendish… We wanted him to live… We deemed him so important and valuable to us that we wanted him to succeed… And we failed… Every single one of us failed…” He’s grabbing his arm that was basically vaporized and only has a small part of it sticking out while he’s kneeling down on the floor.

The agents are using their equipment to just delete the bodies of the other Dakota’s, leaving no trace of blood or any type of remains.

Xavier approaches the Dakota and kneels down alongside him.

“Like I said, I’m sorry we even had to do this, being a time travel agent is not always easy, and this is definitely something that doesn’t simmer well with me” He tells eye patched Dakota who just feels frustrated and powerless.

“It is truly a shame all of this has happened... Hope you can at least meet up with him in the after life” Xavier says as he shoots the last Dakota on the head with a laser pistol and he drops to the floor lifeless.

“All right boys, time to clean up the whole place up”

As they keep cleaning the island from the corpses, they are able to also end the life of cannibal Dakota, and recover the remains of the original Dakota, who was mostly half eaten and mostly had his outer skin ripped off, unfortunately his chest was opened up and had his inner workings exposed, so they cannot be used in the future.

More hours of cleaning pass by, until they are finally ready to leave.

They leave a somewhat huge time bomb and get inside their helicopters and fly away, as they leave the island and look back, they see a huge green flash envelop the whole island, making it disappear along any remaining trace of the place.

The island of the lost Dakota’s has been lost forever along with its people.

An interval of 30 minutes passed by until the agents arrived to the future meeting up with Mr.Block.

Xavier goes ahead to the man’s office and knocks on the door.

“Hello sir? I have some new discoveries to tell you, they are… Rather important” He asserts to the door, and in no time Mr.Block opens it, ready to hear whatever new information has come out to the light.

“All right, tell me what you have discovered Xavier”

The pair sit down in a table with some cups of coffee to have a relaxed conversation, with what news this agent has however, that is not going to be the case.

“Well, first off, I know why Dakota didn’t show up to the hospital where Cavendish was being attended at” Declared the agent feeling relaxed at revealing this piece of information.

“What was that reason?” Mr.Block insists.

“Apparently, Cavendish and Dakota had a break up, I don’t quite know the details but it seems it was a very major event, very important to both of them to just… Not make up peace and continue being friends or at least acquaintances”

Mr.Block rather than show amusement just looks confused more than anything.

“A break up? But those two clowns were together all the time, when I called them they were always within each other, it seemed like they were friends so I don’t quite understand what could of caused them to split to such a degree, you should of tried to gather more information about this” The man pouts crossing his arms in disappointment and it is understandable, as he doesn’t know why this even happened. It’s not like he cares for the two of them, it’s more like he doesn’t quite get how two friends so close together can just split up like that out of nowhere, and end up with Cavendish being dead.

The bureau agent just doesn’t have any explanation as to why he didn’t dig further.

“I am sorry about that sir, I didn’t think you would want any more information than what I have provided regarding that topic, I do have some more important matters to let you know of however” His tone morphs into a more serious and somewhat fearful one, understading this bit of knowledge he’s gonna drop to his superior is not gonna make him happy in the slightest.

“We found a desserted island with various time anomalies and… The anomalies were thousands and thousands of Dakota’s from different timelines, most likely from the times Dakota went back in time to rescue Cavendish sir”

Mr.Block spits his coffee to one of his secretaries that were passing by and he glances at the man completely astonished.

“”You found WHAT!?” He spouts out.

“An island filled with thousands of Dakotas. We were able to dispatch of them very easily as their equipment was not up to standards. The crew fully disintegrated the remains and made the island be consumed by a time bomb, it is like it never even existed sir”

“How can you be so calm when you drop intelligence as important as this!” The man chided to his operative and he seems to tone down his serious attitude and adopts a more fearful one instead.

“I…I am trying to be as objective and informative as I can sir, these are the most revelant aspects of my research but if I’m frank… I was just as shocked as you are when I found that place, it was so… Surreal” Xavier added, thinking back on his experience from the island.

Trying to regain his composure, Mr.Block wipes his lips from the spilled coffee and thinks about the situation. Dakota ended up making multiple copies of himself, just to save Cavendish.

“I don’t understand, what was so special about Cavendish for him to even do such a feat?” The black haired man insists, this really doesn’t seem like any type of normal behavior for any person that isn’t crazy or has something wrong going on with their brain.

Either way, Mr.Block accepts that he might never find out the answer and just decides to dismiss his agent.

“Ahem, if this is everything, you may be able to leave Xavier, I won’t insist on this anymore, both of them are dead, and that should be the end of it, I am sure we will find agents way more capable of handling the situations and missions that Cavendish and Dakota never could”

Xavier without saying another word walks away from the office and keeps going down the main hall of the institution.

Thinking on what Mr.Block said about finding agents more capable, he has an idea.

_Just seeing and killing all of those Dakotas was… Awful, but maybe I can atone for those actions by helping other agents! I am sure those two had something special, they were so close together and even though they failed so much, they never failed to show up for more work, maybe with some more dedication those good traits can be used, I think I might need to make some calls and see what I can do._

And so, the operative began a small scale but very important mission to him:

Begin a new workshop for partnership between time travel groups.

He had to make any calls and ask for many favors to even make this happen, but after some months he was able to get the proper setup to do it, a small room with cream colored walls, some food and drinks ready for anybody to grab and enjoy but most importantly: Capacitation for time travel partners to speak about themselves.

Fortunately, some people showed up and were interested in the workshop. Due to the good nature of the cause, how the environment felt very relaxed, welcoming and open to take any suggestions to make everybody feel satisfied.

The first session went swimmingly and the partnership between the agents felt deeper and tighter.

A good example are Brick and Savannah, out of curiosity they went to the workshop to work on their relationship and they actually improved even more on their team work.

The synergy they had became even better and precise, on one of their missions both took a chance and leaped a huge gap that was made on the floor they were standing, it seemed that Savannah was not gonna make it, until Brick saved her in the last minute and they were able to continue and finish that mission.

If Brick was the same as he was before, maybe he wouldn’t have saved Savannah and continued on his own, and quite possibly would of failed the mission as well.

They also started to spend their time together as actual friends, taking some walks around the city, having a drink and a chat, overall a better environment than what they had before.

Even if Cavendish and Dakota were no longer alive, their spirit for true friendship and appreciation for each other still stood the test of time.

To the misfortune of the world however, this was the only good outcome to come out of this situation, the future got slighty better, but not that much better.


	3. Heaven

As Cavendish felt his own existence be stripped away from his body, he started to fly, to fly upwards, not really knowing where he is going.

He is able to see the clouds and how the day he was alive in really looked from above.

“W-what the… Am I flying…? But how? I am quite certain I am unable to fly, I… I do not remember something like this…” The brit asserts watching the view from above with the cars passing by, the people moving in the streets, the sounds of the entire planet that he always used to hear.

Until it finally hit him, he is flying as a spirit.

“Oh… Oh my… I think… I think I am dead… And I am soaring the skies as a spirit…” He covers his mouth with his hand, shocked at the revelation.

This is a truly sad moment for him and he begins to retrospect.

“This… This is truly it isn’t it? I… I won’t be able to come back anymore… This is my last time seeing the Earth… This planet that brought me to life, this place that I started to enjoy with my friends… Milo, Melissa, Zack… Even…” Cavendish gazes upon his right side with a long face, remembering how broken is friendship with Dakota is now. He still misses him but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he hurt Dakota, and Dakota hurt him.

The man continues to fly off the sky and he witnesses the deepening in the sky’s brilliant blue into the starry depth of the night.

The view is quite the majestic sight to see, he watches the lights come on and see the entire city with it’s beautiful lights, as well as the water looking as sparkly as it could ever be.

He could’ve gotten this view on a plane, a helicopter or something similar, but he wouldn’t have been able to truly grasp it as fully as he is now.

“The city… The forest… Everything looks so… Marvelous… It makes my heart come to peace somewhat, like… A warm feeling of happiness and relief… But… Did my death really need to happen for me to even experience this?” He wonders still displaying some discomfort knowing of his fate.

After some more minutes of soaring, he enters a cloud that seemed way larger than the others, the cloud engulfs his entire body and even helps it get inside.

It feels like he is touching the fluffiest and softest pillows he has ever grazed his skin upon.

Under a breeze of wind, he reaches a higher spot of the cloud and lands slowly on it, as he does, he feels the same feeling of a pillow on his feet but it still feels as study as planting your feet on steel. Inspecting closely he can see that he is actually standing on floor made out of marble, it was just covered by the clouds.

Ahead of him is a big gate made from the same material with a steel beam door ready to block the entrance, the structure itself seems to be based around an European castle and rays of blinding light come from the place inside.

“By jimminy… I think… If what I read on that book before is correct… This… This is heaven… Isn’t it?” The brit walks towards the door and as he does so it opens on it’s own, basically letting him enter the place.

Stepping inside reveals to him that the path seems to be held above as a bridge for anybody to pass by.

At his sides he looks at an endless ocean of clouds with some waterfalls showering sparkly and healthy water. He has never seen anything like this.

“I cannot even fathom… Is this truly how this place was ment to be like? Is this truly the one and only heaven?” He questions to himself in disbelief.

His perception of the world he knew before makes the existence of this place completely unbelievable, he just cannot buy into it, he must be dreaming or something.

He tries to attach himself to this idea of heaven not really being real, until an angel appears floating from the sky and landing right in from of Cavendish.

“Hello, welcome to heaven! The place where every single good soul comes to rest for eternity”

The angel himself is wearing a very large dress with wings coming out from his back, the most typical interpretation of these heavenly creatures. The light engulfed being starts to check more on Cavendish and acknowledges who he is.

“Ooohhh, it is you! Balthazar Cavendish! We were expecting you to come way later but we are glad to have you here” He says with a pure and sincere smile, wanting to receive Cavendish with the warmest welcome anybody could ever want.

The British man himself however is not keen on the idea just yet.

“W-what… What are you? Are you an angel? Is this truly heaven? Am I truly dead? And what do you mean expecting me later?” He inquires, truly not grasping the situation at hand.

“Well, to answer in order… Yes, I am an angel from god himself, yes, this is without a doubt the one and only true heaven, unfortunately yes, you are truly deceased, and what we ment is that… Your destiny was supposed to come later in your life, not know. That is concerning me a little bit but maybe it was a last minute decision made by god, did that answer all of your questions at the moment?” The winged creature asks.

“I… Um… I think so… For the moment…” Balthazar says, although not really sure about his own answer, as he still has many, many more questions. In his thought process he thinks it might be better to ask them later on as he doesn’t want to overload this new being with many, many questions that he might not be able to answer properly just yet.

The duo continue walking down the marble path, with Cavendish watching some doors opened and he notices how the rooms in those doors are completely endless, they do not seem to have an end and house entirely different locations and environments.

As they travel the rock made path, Balthazar just cannot seem to keep his questions to himself and ends up asking the angel again more.

“I am quite sorry but… I wanted to know something”

The angel turns around to look at Cavendish who just glares at him with intensity and concentration.

“Yes? What is it?” He responds raising an eye brow.

“Why am I here in the first place? What did I do to deserve my feeble feet be able to reach this beautiful and majestic place?” The brit exclaims.

“That is quite simple to answer, but if you want an elaborate answer, here it comes!” The angel appears to be rather excited on telling Cavendish this new information, or at least what the British man thinks is new information.

“You see, most of your actions on Earth were for the well being of others, when you wanted to be lawyer you wanted to help others with their legal problems and you were such a promising prospect that you were able to defend the queen of England! That is no small accomplishment, but you didn’t really like that position, as you felt things were corrupted, not really helping society. So you abandoned that high hierarchy place to pursue another goal, being a pianist. This goal was mostly for your own wish of getting rid of the stress you had from being a lawyer, and maybe help others with their own problems with your beautiful and relaxing music. After many practice sessions you were a master at it, and your career could of definitely taken off, but you felt it was being selfish and not really your true goal. You gave up being a pianist thinking it was a very self centered dream, not because you didn’t want to help others”

As the angelical being was telling Cavendish about his life, he really started to conceive that he really wasn’t as useless as he thought he was, with a very small smirk manifesting on his face, as if he was remembering fondly of what his life was like.

“Then… The big stuff, the Bureau of Time Travel, here you have been able to do great things, saving the entire world from a pistachion invasion, helping 2 kids in the past from quite possibly their own death, also saving an entire planet alongside your friends, you have grown to be quite a commendable human being Cavendish, no matter the odds and no matter the situation, you always wanted to help in some way or another, even if the ultimate price was your life, it was also the place where you met your best friend, Vinnie Dakota”

As soon as his name was mentioned, Cavendish’s expression changed from a smirk to a frown in anguish. He is still damaged from what happened with Dakota.

“…” He stares in silence and does not say a single word. The angel notices and interrogates Balthazar.

“Hey, Cavendish, are you all right? Are you… Still sad about Dakota?”

Cavendish rests his hand on his right arm, nods with his head going up and down and turns his head towards a waterfall on the side, attempting to find some comfort on watching the liquid fall down from there.

“I see… I know it has been a rough time for you right now, but we do have a special zone for you, hopefully it can make you feel better and give you some joy back”

The escort now goes into silence, as the angel doesn’t want to disturb Cavendish, who is still in sorrow and anguish, time goes by for the brit as the walk continues, until they finally arrive at his own custom door.

It is 19th century styled carved stained oak French doors with filigree carved transoms all over the door, a truly marvelous sight to be hold, and it is only a matter of time until the heavenly creature opens them.

Before he does so however, Cavendish has one more question.

“Wait!” He yells out.

The angelic figure stops itself from opening the doors and at the 55 year old man with a startled gaze.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

Cavendish assures the being that there isn’t anything wrong.

“No no, it’s just… Before I even enter my own paradise… I want to know, where is Dakota?”

Nothing, just the sound of the waterfalls and the chirping from the birds is heard.

Cavendish still awaits for an answer that the angel doesn’t give to him, and this makes the brit think of his own conclusion and exposing it to the winged creature.

“So… From that silence I can only assume, Dakota is still alive and you just don’t want me to know, as you fear it would hurt me”

Still not a single response comes from the dress wearing angel.

“I understand, you do not have to answer, I can live without knowing” he says with a smile. “Thank you so much for showing me around, my dear angel, I wish you the best of luck in your heaven duties”

The angel only responds with a single remark towards him.

“Enjoy heaven Cavendish”

After this, the figure flies away with the white and pure wings on it’s back.

Cavendish opens the French doors and enters.

What he observes is breath taking.

First is a garden full of all types of flowers, grass and trees with some chairs made out of gold materials that blend in quite nicely with the grass, alongside there are small ponds with white colored frogs and on the trees different types of birds reside with their nests.

The brit himself puts his hands together and keeps them close to his chest, walking around the place mesmerized by the sight.

“It… Truly is like what the book described before… This beauty and harmony… I have never felt anything like this in my life…”

Striding along the walk way towards more of his paradise, from the bushes some bunnies appear, arriving at Cavendish’s feet and staring at him with some kind of fondness, as if they already like him.

The British man looks back at the animals and waves hello.

“Hello there… Little critters… How are you doing?” He spouts uncomfortably, he really hasn’t had that much contact with animals in general but still appreciates their beauty. As he saluted the bunnies, some birds flew at his hands, wanting to take a rest from their flight and also get in contact with Balthazar.

The birds are: A blue jay, a dove, a hummingbird and an owl.

Each one resting on a spot in Cavendish’s extended arm.

The man himself notices the animals that are resting on his extremity.

“Oh, greetings feathered creatures, I… Um… I don’t really have anything to feed you or something alike… So, if you wouldn’t mind…” He tries to communicate that he doesn’t want the birds to stay on his arm, but he is unable to do so, as he contemplates their delicacy.

His curiosity gets the best of him and decides to brush the birds feathers by passing his finger around them.

They enjoy it just as much as Cavendish, as the feathers are quite soft and smooth. Unfortunately his allergies show up and it makes him sneeze loudly.

Afterwards the birds fly away feeling satisfied and the bunnies that were on the brit’s feet also scurry away.

He continues with his roam and finds a fountain with water coming out from it, accompanied by a whole lake that appears to be perfect for a swim.

“Good lord, could this paradise get even better?” He declares as he passes by and glances at the fountain.

Moving along he finds what is his new home.

It is a 19th century styled mansion colored in white and gold, all within his own paradise, and reconsidering the other places he has visited he puts it all together.

Everything is part of the mansion’s location.

“I… I just don’t deserve any of this… So many other people have done better things than me… Why would I have earned anything that is on this place?” He begins to doubt himself, not really sure as to why he is given all of this luxury and marvelous things.

Maybe he is downplaying is actions again, maybe they feel sorry for him, for so many deaths he has endured that they wanted to give him all of these gorgeous gifts and sights.

Right now he doesn’t know, but something catches his attention.

It is a secluded place from the mansion, a staircase ending on a podium with something on top of it.

Since it is so far away he is not able to see it but he just cannot let that place be unexplored, so he heads out to the place.

First he encounters a bridge that connects his home to the staircase. It is a well kept wood bridge and it is suspended above the clouds.

Balthazar walks forward, looking at the staircase like if he was hypnotized by it. Getting closer and closer with each steep, he also sees that the place has some columns with the same style of filigree drawings going all around the podium and staircase.

He reaches the staircase and begins his climb. The stairs themselves are covered with a red carpet, making the climb less tiresome for Cavendish and in fact gives it a touch of glamour, elegance and comfyness.

Some minutes go by and ultimately, Cavendish finally makes it to the end where the podium is.

The podium has only one thing standing on it and it makes his jaw drop.

A golden concert piano with a ray of light landing on top of it.

“It’s… It’s a piano… The type of piano I used to play back in those days… I am witnessing the damn thing and I still can not believe my eyes…”

He takes small steps towards the piano, he touches it, he feels it.

This is something he wanted to play again for so long but never got the chance to do so.

Just encountering it makes him feel joy and flutter in his stomach. Although… A blast of nostalgia also hits him deeply. It is quite a happy but also sad moment for him.

He sits down and takes a deep breath, attempting to concentrate on the music flowing through his heart and his true feelings flourishing.

The piano notes start to hit his ears as he plays on the musical device and his mouth also feels the sound of words come out.

“Can’t get my mind… Out of those memorieeees… Now it’s time to tell them don’t take my dreaaaaam…” He takes a brief breath before singing the next phrase as he continues to play.

“Still the music keeps, untuning me from the words that hurt my soul, removing doubts from my miiiiiiiiiind…”

Increasing the intensity of his notes and tempo, he closes his eyes to be fully absorbed into the melody, he doesn’t really heed on what he is playing but the melody has been quite sad and sorrow, only his body knows it is like this, his brain does not.

“Those long days passing by from the door, like late summer they slowly fade awaaay, finding ways through the favorite tu-une playing all daaaaay… With my eyes clo-osed… Those long days passing by from the door, like late summer they slowly fade awaaay, finding ways through the favorite tu-une, feeling meeeeeee…” As he is about to finish he makes his arms go really, really high in order to put enough force for the notes to sound as loud as they possibly can while he is still closing his eyes.

“With those SOU-UNDS” He plays the final notes and pants from his exhaustion.

Upon further notice and after he catches some air, he sees that he is crying.

With this realization, he understands what he truly feels, immediately he puts his head directly onto his arms, sobbing on top of the piano.

He got what he wanted the most, recognition, rewards that truly were up to his actions and sacrifices, a life that he could live knowing that he helped making the world better, but it really wasn’t what he needed.

What Cavendish has realized and why he started to cry was not joy, it wasn’t nostalgia either.

He was missing Dakota, and after playing that song, he truly understood something:

He needs Dakota but… He will probably never see Dakota again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for whoever didn't get Cavendish's singing portion, listening to this will make it have a lot more sense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVLH5V6YvOI this will make that portion a lot better and have that extra punch. I just love this song way too much and I thought it would be fitting for Cavendish so I do hope you enjoy your listen :P
> 
> The art for this fanfic was made by the awesome Eatingsomegreeneggos! She is such a sweet heart and it would be appreciated if you could check out her tumblr. Here it is: https://eatingsomegreeneggos.tumblr.com/


	4. Hell

Awakening from what could be called a slumber, Dakota opens his eyes, not really knowing where he is, as he apparently is floating on an empty black void.

“H-huh…? W-what… What happened…?” He ponders upon himself, switfly moving around his head to look around him.

“Where am I? Why is everything so dark in here?” As he moves himself, he looks down and notices that he is not standing on solid ground but instead floating in the air, starting to understand what has happened to him.

“I’m… Floatin’? That… That just means one thing… I think I’m dead now” He says feeling depressed and anguished, he really didn’t think his own kind would end up leaving him with cannibal Dakota and getting eaten.

His thoughts do not last long however, as a hole opens below him and drags him with an incalculable force.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” He screams as he is dragged by this invisible gust of wind, like a vacuum cleaner is sucking him from below.

As he falls down he sees various rocks around him, like if he’s entering a cave inside a volcano, the rocks are just in red and orange, apparently burning eternally.

“WHAT IS GOING OOOOOOOOOOOOON” Dakota yells out still being dragged down, happily for him, the speed starts to slow down and he observes the floor below.

He lands on it somewhat harshly, but nothing too extreme either.

“Oh… Oh boy, that was quite the ride, at least the landing wasn’t too bad, it actually felt more like jumping from a 2 story bedroom and from the top part” The American declares as he stands on top of the floor.

He gazes upon the place he is at, and the view is not pretty at all.

There are spiders completely colored black, with very piercing and menacing yellow eyes clinging to the walls, they are quite huge for spiders, probably on the same size as small chihuahas.

They are lakes and fountains of lava that make the place turn into a red hue, symbolizing how much heat and pressure is emanating from the location.

“Holy moly… This place sure is hot, I don’t even know where I am, but I need to keep going, maybe find a way out or at least ask around and find what all of this is” Dakota asserts continuing to walk forward.

On his stroll he encounters some cages with hideous looking beasts, deformed humans by calcination and others with stripped uniforms.

This does not look good at all.

Dakota approaches one of the cages with an uniform wearing person inside it to get some answers.

“Hey uh… Sorry to bother ya but, where am I? What is this place?”

The person looks at him in ridicule as this being is very aware of where they are.

“Pfff, seriously? You are actually asking me that? Pal, we are in hell, where every single bad apple ends up after their time on Earth, quite the new home wouldn’t you say?” The person says with a snarky attitude against Dakota.

He himself reacts rather surprised and astonished at the revelation.

“WHAT!? THIS IS HELL!?”

The imprisioned soul nods and Vinnie now looks terrified.

“B-b-b-b-but why hell!? Isn’t that supposed to be a myth!?” He exclaims, wanting all of this to just be a nightmare, or for it to be anything else but hell.

“Nah, you are seeing it right here, right now, this, is, hell. You must of done something bad to end up here, but you don’t seem like the type of guy to be doing bad stuff, so maybe they mixed you up, it sorta happens a few times when two people have the same name, or they look pretty similar”

Dakota’s impression switches from fear to exasperation, mixing him up with someone else? Now that is frustrating.

“Mixed up the names!? How could that even be possible!? Isn’t this place supposed to keep everythin’ in order!?” He yells out angry and frustrated.

“Hey hey, keep it down bucko, if you wanna talk to someone about it, go to the devil himself, maybe he can fix this misunderstanding and you can go to heaven or whatever. All right?” The prisioned said somewhat annoyed at Dakota’s attitude, as his screams were getting quite loud and tiresome.

Dakota takes the advice from the man and decides to go make a fuzz to the lord of the underworld himself.

As the stomps towards the evil being, he sees more and more prisioners, with screams and moans of agony and pain coming from a room at the left side.

“Um… W-what is that…?” Vinnie ponders upon himself scared once more and turns his head to the direction where the sounds are coming from.

Dakota inspects this section and witnesses what it is.

A torture room where thousands and thousands of souls are being executed over, and over again with their corresponding punishment.

One of them is getting it’s head get cut by a guillotine over and over again.

Another one is getting burned in a stick, and as soon as the fire extinguishes itself, it is lit up once more.

Dakota just stares in silence and complete horror, not even able to scream properly and instead screaming on it’s inner self.

Trying to ignore the sight of that place he resumes his march directly to wherever the devil resides.

Coincidentally he is able to find a directory stand for the place. Dakota takes notice of this and he approaches the stand.

“Welcome to hell! How may I be of assistance?” A very sexy looking lady with horns coming out of her head and with a pointy tail and red skin greets the American with a smile. She is wearing a secretary looking outfit with a black shirt, black jacket and a white cravat.

“Oh… Hi, how ya doin’?” Dakota greets as well and wants to ask her about the whereabouts of the devil.

“Sorry lady but I wanted to ask ya, where exactly is the devil? I wanna speak with him about my stance here, I probably shouldn’t be here” He assures the devilish woman who looks expectantly at the man.

“I most likely got mixed up with someone else or somethin´ you know? Besides, I have done a lot of good stuff, I should be In another place right now, I dunno” Dakota replies and the woman just has a brief chuckle.

“Okay, the way to the devil’s lair is up those stairs, he is playing some pool right now” She answers playfully.

Dakota peeks into the direction of where the stairs are and perceives that they are very, very, very high up, most likely 30 stories high.

“Um… Are you sure?” He wavers on his tone, feeling intimated by the sheer amount of steps he has to climb.

“Yeah, I am pretty sure sweet heart, have fun!” The secretary says with excitement and some taunting sprinkled in.

Dakota with a face full of dread attempts to climb the arduous stairs and spends quite a long time doing so.

Floor after floor, he just watches everything below him go further, and further within his eye sight.

It is a truly brutal and taxing task but he is willing to do it in order to see the devil and set things straight.

Eventually he arrives at the devil’s lair, panting from the ascend.

The place seems to be like an executive high floor of a billionaire, with tons of drinks, very high classs chairs and sofas to sit on, a massive TV, and of course, the pool table.

Dakota however pays attention to an important detail:

He is extremely tiny compared to the rest of the room, like the size of an ant.

The devil however is very clearly able to see Dakota and stares at him while leaning towards the pool table with his hip.

“Well, well, well, look at what we have here” The king of the underworld says with a smile.

Dakota gets a good look at him and perceives how much hair he has, that it is black, and his eyes yellow while he is carrying his devil fork, which is made out of gold.

“If it isn’t our newest addition, Vinnie Dakota” He continues gloating and Dakota stares at him.

“W-w-what?” He wavers in his voice not understanding what the friend ment.

“Yeah, you didn’t know? You must have noticed, you are in hell you dummy”

Dakota interrupts and wants to know more of his situation.

“N-no! That can’t be right! You have me mixed up with somebody else! I-I should be in another place! N-not here!” Vinnie rebuttles trying to make the devil understand that this is not his place.

The black haired being however has to reveal something to Dakota. He makes a list appear out of thin air and checks it with some reading glasses that he also made appear out of nowhere.

“No no, I have ya right here. Vinnie Dakota, you ended up going back in time multiple times to save your best friend without a second thought, pretty commendable if you ask me” He declares as he reads the notes on his list, afterwards his expression changes from meticulously reading, to a disappointed glare at Dakota.

“But… You messed it up so… So bad, when we get guys like you instead of making me happy to torture them for eternity, it makes me get sad. If you didn’t do those mistakes you could’ve made it to heaven no problem…”

It is true then, Dakota is indeed in hell because he was sent here, there isn’t a single mistake about it.

This does not sit well with Dakota.

“Wh-what da ya mean I messed up!? I haven’t messed up anythin´! In fact, the one that has been messing up has been Cavendish!”

“WRONG!” The devil backlashes with a grin and a scream.

“I’ll explain to ya why you were even sent here in the first place, with good and bad things being on the mix, that way you will be able to understand better everything”

Dakota doesn’t trust the demon’s words, but due to his difference in size and how powerful and all mighty he looks to be, Vinnie doesn’t really have many options, so he stands there and listens to whatever the hairy beast has to say.

“So, first off you didn’t really have any goals in your life, just going aimlessly with the flow of your life, doing all different kinds of stuff until you ended up in BoTT, there you met somebody that could set you straight, Balthazar Cavendish. At your first day meeting him you didn’t quite hit the mark with him at first, but eventually the two of you grew to be truly good friends. You have always been a person that helps others when they need it and you are free to do so. You also tend to go into great heights in order to do that, you are pretty easy going and can get along with a lot of people, but they don’t really stick with ya. You become a bit too… Annoying if I’m being brutally honest”

Dakota frowns at the last sentence, although he understands what it means and he seems to pout afterwards.

“But Cavendish has been sticking with ya because he really values you as a friend, and you felt the same for him… Until he died the first time. After that you considered him more than that, you wanted to save him because you felt in your heart it was the right thing to do, you knew how much you would sacrifice if you did so and you still went through with it, and again, and again, and again. These are the traits of a good human, even if your actions for bringing him back have been… On a gray area you could say”

“Gray area?” Asks Dakota confused.

“Yeah, you see… Saving somebody while sacrificing a lot of your own life is a good deed or action, but you were doing that to save somebody important to you, somebody that is your friend even though the universe was just saying no. That is kind of selfish, you weren’t letting go, but because you didn’t let go that person has been having a better life than being dead. So… You are still making a good action for a somewhat selfish reason, that’s why it is a gray area” The devil declares, making Dakota understand that statement.

“Being honest, even if that is a gray area, it really shouldn’t have affected your chances of getting into heaven, funny enough, you have been on a path for gluttony with your excessive eating, which is considered a sin, but because of the many good actions you have done it also wouldn’t have affected ya. Overall you have been doing quite a lot of good”

The American’s reaction to all of this instead of being for the better, he starts to showcase his anger and frustration towards the figure standing above him.

“Okay okay, I get it. I’m a good guy, so what gives!? Why am I not in heaven!?” He shouts with his mind and tone full of resentment.

“Oh boy, I’m gonna have a field day with this” The black haired creature spouts with some rejoicement.

“So, let’s see. First you didn’t believe in what Cavendish had to say about the alien spaceship, that wouldn’t really be anything to punish for in an isolated circumstance, what really makes it something to be accounted for though… Is how you already knew how it felt to have the entire world not believe in a single word of what you say when everybody from the future didn’t believe you or Cavendish about saving the world from a pistachio invasion, you also experienced an abduction yourself when that alien mother was trying to take you and Cavendish alongside her baby or whatever it was, and you also knew what kind of job you were doing, chasing after alien garbage and what not, and you also heard from Bob Block himself that abductions were a thing in the first place. After all of that said, you STILL didn’t believe in Cavendish”

Dakota’s face goes into a slighty more pale tone, he really didn’t consider any of those things when he told Cavendish that he didn’t believe on him, being on that job just made him space out from reality so badly that it made him forget those situations, and he now knows this.

“Ohh yeah… That’s the kind of look I love to see” Says the joyful devil making mockery of Dakota’s sudden change of skin color.

“Next, we have your stubbornness and resentment towards Cavendish after he used the memory wipe device on you, for not really trusting his words he felt alone and desperate. That is why he did that to ya, was it justified? Hmm… Nah, not really, he shouldn’t have done that, he could’ve taken off alone without telling you at some point while you were distracted and you wouldn’t have known where he went or something. Using the device was a bit much”

The man just starts seeing red now after this was mentioned as he remembered how awful it felt to be without Cavendish for months. Dakota in order to respond yells out at the beast in frustration.

“SEE!? THAT WASN’T MY FAULT!” He replies.

To this answer, the fiend laughs out loud with tears coming down from his eyes, the tears themselves are made out of lava that explodes in contact, luckily Dakota was able to dodge them properly, although they definitely gave him quite the scare.

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I CAN’T! THAT IS WAY TOO FUNNY! HOW YOU SCREAMED LIKE THAT! YOU SOUNDED LIKE A TEENAGER! AHAHAHAHA!” He mocks Dakota’s voice tone and after having some more laughs he regains composure and continues with his lecture.

“You think it wasn’t your fault, but it kind of was, if you believed in him in the first place he wouldn’t have felt so desperate, alone and rejected to even do that to ya”

Dakota stares in silence with his arms crossed, he understands the point that the hairy creature made, but is not very cooperative on really coming in terms with it.

“Another thing, because of your lie of memory loss, you made Cavendish feel dread, desperation, you made him suffer because he really thought he hurt you in some way. The worst part is that YOU wanted that, to make him feel some kind of pain or remorse for making you experience the suffering you endured for not knowing where he was all of those months ago, then to have him come back to ya and beg for forgiveness, isn’t that right?” The devil smirks with a wide smile looking back at Vinnie. He is instead putting into perspective what he ended up doing.

“I…” Not even a word can be spoken from his mouth; this is starting to overwhelm his emotions and senses. To the devil, this concedes his previous statement and he gloats.

“And I am not even close to finishing! Just look at ya, you are just out of breath already and there’s still quite a bit more to go my friend!” He remarks with the snarkiest smile Dakota has ever seen, this is truly the devil tormenting him with his actions, nothing else, nothing more and it is destroying him.

“After that, we got you leaving like a coward to some rundown town, leaving Danville behind and every single friend you made there, Cavendish was also worried about you disappearing from the map, you got him and the kids looking for ya all around the place, and what did you do? Nothin’. Not a single call, not a single message, you didn’t have enough courage to face him again, you got that job as a mascot for a restaurant, you thought that would make you forget, it didn’t. You thought eating would make you forget, it didn’t. Your little lie about the memory loss was so harmful that you also wanted to believe in it. To not remember Cavendish, but it was futile, and you knew this but didn’t want to accept it”

“S-stop!” Dakota pleads to the creature.

He ignores and proceeds with his words.

“You knew it in your heart, but once again, you fooled yourself with your mind and went even deeper into the rabbit hole, staying as far away as you can afford, sticking to the island of those Dakotas you created with your time travel meddling. Even they weren’t very supportive of your decision, some time passed and you thought maybe a letter would be a good idea, but only to some people that in your mind would never reveal the secret to Cavendish. So that’s another sin, because you could of tried to go in person to Milo’s home, explain everything to them and to Cavendish, and try to make peace. But oh nooo, little boy here is too conflicted with his feeliiiings, so he doesn’t commit and just sends a dumb little letter”

“I… I told ya to stop…” Dakota is hugging himself, trying to ignore whatever this ruler of the underworld is spouting out from his mouth, but to no avail.

“What does the letter do? It makes everybody be shocked about the revelation, and on an unfortunate turn of events, Cavendish looks at it when he was having a good day apparently, and it makes him have a heart attack, all of that pain, all of that sadness, everything that was wrong inside the man bursted out in that occasion, and on his last time he would open his eyes. He died because of you, and now your friends hate you for it”

Dakota denies this fact, he knows Milo, Melissa and Zack wouldn’t hate him for something like that.

“As if! They would never blame me for something like that! They are good kids!”

That devilish grin comes back, and the devil’s eyes glow with a flame coming from the inside. While he does this motion he summons a big and transparent ball of glass where Milo, Zack and Melissa are fully visible.

“Are you sure about that?” He says with his teeth grinding within each other from the wide grin he was giving Dakota, he himself looks into the sphere to see what is going on with the group.

“That piece of… He’s the reason Cavendish is gone!” Melissa screams out fueled in grievance.

“I don’t think I’ll ever able to recover from this… H-he… I tried everything… I did everything right…” Zack blames himself for not being able to save the British man, to him it was a dear friend and he couldn’t do anything to stop his death from happening.

Milo on the other hand is the most affected person.

“…I tend to think positive of situations but… I really… Really hope Dakota is dead” A silence falls over the whole mood, not even Melissa and Zack were prepared for that.

“W-what did you say Milo?” Zack inquires with his tone becoming weaker and scared.

“He’s the reason Cavendish is dead, to me he shouldn’t be alive either, and if I find him… I’ll let Murphy’s Law handle him” He denotes with a stoic, cold and harsh tone. This is not the same Milo from before, something changed on him… Something broke.

This has shaken Dakota to his core and he is in disbelief.

“M-Milo… Hates me…? So mucht that he would rather see me dead?” He denotes with genuine fear and concern.

“Yup, because of your actions, the kid just wants to see you burn, and even if you don’t burn from other sources, he is gonna handle it himself if he ever finds you, which luckily for you he won’t” The devil reaffirms and afterwards he seems to remember something that is going to make the situation even worse.

“Oh oh, I just remembered something, you wanna know something that makes all of this even more tragic?” He asks still with his grin plastered on his face.

“What?” Dakota inquires scared of what he wants to say next, as so far every single revelation and sentence has destroyed his sanity little by little.

“That Milo was the abductee that Cavendish saw, he was kidnapped by an alien race that wanted to use his abilities in order to save their own planet, but as you may know, Murphy’s Law took effect and made the aliens scared, so they just gave up and let Milo be. They accepted their destiny and now the whole planet is in ruins, with almost to no life left” Finishing his statement, he smokes a cigarette pleasantly while looking back at Dakota.

“So… That means… All of this… All of what I did… All of what Cavendish did…” Dakota retrospects attempting to understand the meaning of this fact, the friendish creature however interrupts him in order to finish faster Dakota’s thought.

“Was all in vane? Yeah, you basically did a baby tantrum over this whole situation and you got your best friend killed, your other friends hating you for eternity and also killed the Dakota’s from the island”

“WHAT!?” Vinnie yells out feeling even more shocked and taken by a storm of feelings.

“Yeah, forgot to mention that haha, the BoTT found the island and took down every single Dakota, and even the island itself. They no longer exist, and since those Dakota’s were… Of dubious origins, they are now stuck on limbo, neither going to heaven or hell as they are still you, but also not you”

This was the last straw for Dakota, not in the sense of making his anger boil, but to literally break him. He doesn’t emote anymore, he doesn’t move anymore, he is only staying still, like if he was a statue made out of rocks.

“Hey, you doing okay there Vinnie boy?” The hairy beast asks, making fun of Dakota and even just using his finger to poke at him from different angles.

“Well, you are clearly shaken by this and you are now as static as a dummy from a department store, so let me tell ya something”

The devil becomes closer to Dakota as he steps towards him and just makes him a very straight to the point interrogation.

“Do ya want another chance?”

Dakota turns his head upwards to look at the devilish life form, he doesn’t quite know what he should answer, Cavendish has hurt him deeply but he also understands how much he has hurt others.

What will Dakota do?

_Fix his mistakes (jump to the next chapter)_

_Decline the offer and accept his fate (keep reading this chapter)_

“Nah, I don’t want another chance, I don’t need one, I did my mistakes and I accept them. If you want me to suffer, so be it, I’ll take it head on” Dakota asserts, crossing his arms and letting his pride take over him.

The ruler of the underworld just looks at him back with disappointment.

“I expected ya to be smarter than that you know? But very well then, if you desire to face punishment, it will be done as you ask”

“Just one last thing though…” Dakota says, wanting to basically have a last wish before his torture begins.

“Yeah?” The fiend pays attention to the American’s request.

“Could I… Just see Cavendish one last time?”

This question in particular has upset the creature somewhat, and he will let Dakota know how he feels about it.

“Oh, so now you wanna see Cavendish don’t you!?” He responds somewhat aggressively.

“Well, don’t you worry Dakota, you will see him soon enough” With a snap of his fingers he sends teleports the man to the torture room that he saw earlier, but now Vinnie appears to be in a specific room made for him.

It is an infinite corridor with the same structure as the main place, with rocks emanating incalculable heat pressure and with a bright red tone, as if Dakota was just standing in an active volcano.

Dakota doesn’t seem to be fret by this sight and is instead confused.

“Hey, where is Cavendish? I thought you would take me to see him again”

Right after Dakota makes his statement, he sees various people approaching him.

These individuals are using black pants while being shirtless and also using executioner hoods that cover their whole head, with eye sockets to let them see what they are doing.

Inmediately however, they run towards Dakota and start hurting him in various ways.

Some use battle axes to cut through him, others use swords, lances and rapiers to stab through him, another group use their fists only, even heavy duty weapons like AK-47’s, Magnums and many other examples are present.

Dakota feels every single hit like if he was still alive, screaming in pain and agony.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! YOU TOLD ME I WOULD SEE CAVENDISH AGAIIIIIIN!!!!!!!!!!!!” Dakota chided while also yelling his lungs out to the devil.

He makes an appearance in a projection and with his confident smirk he remarks something to Dakota.

“Don’t worry, he is here” Switfly, he turns his head and stares at the group who is was bashing Vinnie without any kind of mercy and directs his speech to them.

“Fellas, if you may”

As soon as these words are said, the group take off their hoods, revealing an absolutely traumatizing sight to Dakota’s eyes.

The group is made of the Cavendish’s that have died before, the ones that Dakota couldn’t save.

“N-no! Th-th-this isn’t happening! N-NO!” Dakota exclaims as he experiences his own sanity being stripped away from his mind.

“You wanted to see Cavendish didn’t you? Well, there you have him, with every single version of him that you couldn’t save. In case you are wondering, these Cavendish’s are on the same vein as your other versions, they were also in limbo, but I was allowed to grab them from that limbo. And you wanna know what’s the best part? This isn’t even your actual torture!”

Vinnie is shaking uncontrollably and is barely able to confront the hairy demon, or even just look at him, he is still able to do so and the fiend has one more revelation to make.

“You will get to experience first hand, every single death that Cavendish has suffered for all of eternity, I even added some new ones myself as it is quite fun to come up with new ways of seeing someone be tortured, this is my job after all you know?”

“Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-you wou-wou-wou-wouldn’t…” He denies with his head shaking it left and right, but the devil insists.

“Oh yeah I would, this is your punishment for being responsible of killing your best friend, hurting some teenagers for life, and also being responsible for the death of thousands of versions of your yourself that still counted as separate lives. So I hope you can enjoy it to the fullest, I hope you like spending eternity with your best friend in the world torturing ya forever!” As his last gesture to Dakota, he waves goodbye while having a completely dead look on him to scare his victim to the core.

And it works.

This is the worst Dakota has ever felt in his life and nothing will ever be able to top it.

As he starts to experience every single death that Cavendish had suffered, the group made of Cavendish also reprehend Dakota for not saving them in their due time.

“It was your fault I died Dakota!” “You could’ve tried to save me from the quicksand! There was still time!” “Why didn’t you tell me there was a path for experts on the mountain!?” “Why didn’t you go alongside me to explore mars!?” “You could’ve told me there was going to be a man hole where I was gonna fall!”

Every single time he was reminded of his mistakes, of his failures to save his friend, and of the actions that he took on his last time living something started to click more and more with him.

Cavendish shouldn’t have used the memory wipe device on him, maybe what they needed was just to talk about it, think of ideas, anything but that.

The choices that he did however, were fully mistakes of his own. He felt betrayed and wanted to receive an apology, and all of that led to his demise and his fate.

He finally grasped the situation.

This time, Cavendish wasn’t guilty, neither were Milo, Melissa, Zack, or anybody.

It was all his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, for some people, this would be the ending of this fic and it would definitely be quite the shocking ending, but for anybody that is still interested in seeing what I have prepared for the alternative ending (next chapter) just wait for me on that, I hope you won't be disappointed by it.
> 
> Edit: Forgot to say, alternate ending has been out for quite a bit now lol so do give it a read and tell me what you think


	5. Redemption

Dakota just stares deeply in thought at the devil, thinking of his choices, how he has hurt Milo, Melissa and Zack, how he caused Cavendish’s death, and how the other Dakota’s were killed also because of his fault.

After some very heavily debated consideration on his mind, he has reached a conclusion, although he seems to be rather distressed and in sorrow when speaking.

“I… I do want another chance… I… I want to try…” He looks down to the ground, feeling ashamed for his previous actions and seeking for redemption.

This makes the underworld ruler throw a smile in comprehension.

“Heh, see? That wasn’t so hard, okay. I will give you a chance to redeem yourself. I’m gonna let ya become a ghost and go see your friends on Earth, and you can try to say whatever you may want to say, all right?” The hairy being denotes to Dakota, who nods with his head, feeling a bit more determined.

With a snap of his fingers, he is transported into Earth, very close to the teenagers, they are walking towards their home with their spirits completely down.

Vinnie gazes upon them and just feels even more guilty and saddened that his own friends are feeling so down.

He at first doubts of himself.

“S-should… Should I really try to talk to them after what happened? Is this even the right time to try and fix this specific problem…? I… I don’t know if they will ever forgive me, it’s my fault that Cavendish is now dead…”

But then, he remembers the fond memories he formed with the group, how much they went through together, and how deep their friendship became.

“But… I still have to try, to me, they are still my friends! And they deserve some closure at least! I have to try!” Filled with passion and hope, he steps right in front of the group and they stop immediately in their tracks.

“Wh-wh-what!?” Says Zack exalted and startled from Dakota’s appearance.

“D-dakota…?” Melissa questions in disbelief, watching Dakota fly as a ghost right in front of them.

“H-hey…” Dakota waves embarrassed and showing some guilt by even just looking at them again.

“You…” Milo hisses with spitefulness and with a glare full of hatred at first, but after really noticing what has happened to Dakota, the teenager shows some concern towards the ghostly figure.

“I… I… Uh… Got the chance to speak with you guys… And… Em…” Words are unable to come out properly from Vinnie’s mouth as he is way too nervous and guilt pressured.

How can he be talking to some of the people he hurt so deeply with his actions? Should he really be doing this after how much harm he has done? He wanted this chance of redemption, but he feels he shouldn’t be taking it.

“W-what is it Dakota?” Zack inquires, he just cannot let this opportunity pass by, he wants to hear him, and Melissa appears to be on the same boat.

Dakota in order to give himself some courage and will power starts slapping himself to get his guilt feelings out of the way and truly speak with his heart.

Luckily for him, it worked.

“Look, I… I am very sorry for what I have done, for my stupid actions that I took with Cavendish, with you guys. I really shouldn’t have left this place… I shouldn’t have tried to make Cavendish feel remorse for using the memory wipe thing on me, I could’ve tried to speak with him about all of this… Tried to understand our situation, not get you guys involved in all of this mess… I was being petty, I felt betrayed and had so much bitterness against Cavendish for doing what he did, when he only wanted to protect him… I also hurt every single one of you when I left and… When he died for real… I… I was destroyed… I saw him in the place I was staying at… I just…. Didn’t think all of this would happen… I wanted an apology from him… But we should’ve just talked about our feelings and concerns… I can’t even express how… How much regret and… Sorrow I am experiencing from my mistakes… It was all my fault and I am sorry… I hope any of you can forgive me for being such a dumb idiot… I ended up failing you kids… And I am deeply hurt too… I cannot take anything back of what I said or what I have done, but I am making an attempt here to at least forgive myself, and for any of you to forgive me”

The man was crying, even a ghost can still cry and have emotions.

It looks to be the same with Zack and Melissa, as they are tearing up too.

Everything he said was genuine to the pair and in their hearts, even with all of the actions he did, he is forgiven.

Milo on the other hand has a different perspective.

“Dakota… I don’t… Quite know how to feel about all of this, I appreciate that you came here to search for forgiveness and all, but… I just don’t know if I can forgive you… You basically took Cavendish away from us… You hurt us with just… Leaving like that, not even a goodbye or something… And that letter made everything worse… I just… Don’t know”

Dakota stares at the boy and understands his feelings, it is not easy to forgive such actions.

“That’s okay kid, at least I wanted to tell ya how deeply I regret all of this”

Milo afterwards just keeps walking forward, trying to get back to his home, while Melissa and Zack look at Dakota still with some tears.

“I forgive you Dakota, even if you did all of those things… We are still friends after you gave your apology” Zack states with a weak smile, offering his forgiveness at the ectoplasm being.

“I feel the same, we may never see each other again, but with your apology I feel at peace somewhat, I hope you can be in a better place Dakota” Melissa says as she wipes the tears from her eyes, she even gives Vinnie a hug.

“…” The American breaks down and also tears up a bit, hugging the girl back.

“Thank you guys…” He whispers as he exerts his joy and peace with himself. He was forgiven by two of his friends and that is already a great achievement for him.

“I do have to go though… There is one more person I need to speak to… The most important of all… Again, thank you so much, and I hope you can have a good life” He begins to float to the sky. While doing so he spouts to the teenagers below him. “Take care, and goodbye!”

The pair respond with a wave also saying goodbye.

Taking off into the night’s dark blue sky, he also makes eye contact with the sight of the city.

The lights are shining brightly below him and he is able to appreciate the people walking by, the cars, the traffic signs, a concert that was going on with fireworks and colored reflectors.

This kind of view gives Dakota a new perspective of how he perceived the world and it’s people, even if it is something from the past.

“Man… I really shouldn’t have done all of those things, I could’ve enjoyed that concert with Cavendish, or just have a stroll in the city, getting something to eat… After I finish doing what I have to do, nothing is gonna be the same ever again”

He lets out a drawn out sigh and switches his head to the sky one more time.

While entering some area with tons of clouds, he feels like they are dragging him gently alongside the wind.

It is filling him with comfort and a dreamy sensation going through his head and body, also being able to feel the fluffyness of the clouds.

“Aaahhh… It feels… So good… Just touching them makes me happy… As if I was in my house all covered up in fluffy doggies…”

Finalizing his ascent, he lands on the ground of Heaven, seeing the absolutely beautiful entry of the place.

“Wow… This place… It’s so dreamy and… Fancy, and the light is so nice too” He says while walking into the entrance, admiring every tiny detail that he can see.

In the meanwhile, Cavendish is still crying on the piano and he is visited by the angel that escorted him to his own little paradise.

“Cavendish… Why are you crying?” The feathered being asked, very concerned and offering compassion for the man.

The brit doesn’t respond, he just sobs still with his face sunken into his arms and the piano.

The angel still concerned and showing care for Cavendish, he attempts to get his attention by tapping his shoulder very softly wanting to get the man’s attention.

He is successful but it only makes his dread grow even more.

Cavendish’s face is full of tears, he hasn’t stopped crying for quite some time now and it shows.

“I…” The brit makes an effort on speaking, but his mouth does not budge. Instead he pouts in sorrow and yearns for somebody’s return.

The creature gets closer to Balthazar and holds his hands in a very delicate and confused manner.

“Cavendish… I just want to know, what is making you unhappy, you truly seem saddened, in pain, in distress, with sorrow. Heaven is supposed to make you feel happy, to make you feel in true peace with yourself, or at least we try to, because we want it to be a good environment, and I am very troubled with your behavior. I only desire to help you… So, please, if you can… Tell me, what is happening? What are you feeling?”

The brit stares into the heavenly being’s eyes, his words have achieved what the angel wanted; opening up Cavendish so he can tell what is going on.

He wipes off his tears with his forearm, takes a deep breath and opens his mouth to talk.

“It’s… It’s Dakota… I… I miss him… I miss him dearly… He… He was… So special to me, one of the few people that understood me… That liked me for who I was… That didn’t care how many times I failed… He would support me… He would give me hope that maybe… Just maybe… One of our missions could go right and we would get promoted… That all of my efforts would’ve been worth my sacrifices… And according to heaven… They were…”

Finishing this sentence, Cavendish turns his head around to look at his paradise with melancholy and attempting to make a forced smile.

“But… Why should they matter now… Now that my partner… My friend Dakota is not even here to enjoy it alongside me… We were a team… He was my confidant… And now I don’t even know if he’s alive or not… If he’s here… If he’s somewhere else… And I just can’t take that anymore… I want to see him… I need to see him… Due to the circumstances however… I don’t think I will ever see him again and…” Tearing up again, he looks back at the angel who is apparently also in the verge of crying, due to how Cavendish is delivering his words with a tone full of depression, deep sadness and resentment.

“That just… Breaks me… It breaks me to no further end… He did so much for me… And this is how it all ended… Without him…”

The winged spirit also appears to not be able to hold his own emotions and gives the brit a very heartfelt hug, and begins to tear up as well.

“I’m sorry… I’m truly sorry for not being able to help you Cavendish… That is not my decision to make… And I regret that you feel this way…”

The pair just share their own feelings in that hug and becoming lost in their own minds, they aren’t letting go of each other, they want to stay in there, as that gives them comfort and eases the pain.

Until they hear a familiar voice.

“Cavendish! Hey Cavendish! Where are ya!?”

It’s Dakota, who was apparently able to reach Cavendish’s paradise and is now looking for him.

“I-is that…” Balthazar asks himself in incredulity. Getting up from his seat he makes an effort on looking from that distance if it is who he thinks it is.

He is right, it is Dakota.

“D-DAKOTA!” He yells out very loudly and this makes Dakota change his direction to where he heard that scream.

His face is then immediately filled with joy, he has found him, Cavendish is here.

“CAVENDISH!” He responds to his partner while he waves back at him with his hand.

Now knowing where his friend has been, he makes a frantic run pointing to his location.

Cavendish at seeing Dakota run so fast towards him feels warmth, joy and how his emotional scars are getting healed.

Dakota still cares about him, Dakota still likes him, Dakota still values him, and time just slows down to him as Dakota opens up his arms to give his partner a massive hug.

The both of them look at each and extend their arms, finally getting reunited.

It probably wasn’t that much time, but to the pair it felt like an eternity.

“Dakota…” Balthazar whispers, tearing once more, although instead of exerting sorrow and sadness, he shows Dakota his relief, happiness and melancholy through his eyes.

Before Dakota can even begin to answer however, the brit is puzzled about one thing on Vinnie’s return.

“Wait… I just realized… If you are here now… Then that means you…”

“Cavendish… I’m…” Dakota again cannot find the proper answer to his friend’s expression, he is also hit with quite a lot of emotions that he is unable to process.

Even so, he pulls through all of those dilemnas to speak face to face, no more lies, no more resentment. Putting himself and Cavendish away from the hug he begins to explain his piece.

“Yeah… I’m dead… And I’m sorry for not being able to keep going with my life back on Earth. But that isn’t what I’m here for. I’m here… To apologize to you Cavendish”

The man’s eyes widen and he cover his mouth with a motion of his hand.

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk about how I felt when you left… I’m sorry I didn’t consider your true feelings when I told ya my memory was messed up… If I hadn’t done any of that stuff… We would still be alive… Milo wouldn’t hate me… The island of the Dakota’s would still exist… I… I messed up everything Cavendish and I am truly regretful because of it. It was a mistake to think I was entitled to an apology, as I wasn’t fair with you either. How I treated you before any of this happened…. I should’ve believed ya… You were right all long…”

Cavendish wants to ask a question to Dakota, as he was listening throught his explanation but does not understand one of his statements.

“Dakota, I beg you pardon my interruption but… What do you mean I was right all along?”

Dakota takes a deep breath before dumping this bit of information to the brit, basically embracing himself for whatever happens.

“The spaceship was indeed real, and they wanted to take Milo because they thought he could help them out with saving their home planet from destruction. But they just gave up after seeing what Murphy’s Law could do and went to their home planet and… Die. My “tantrum” was all for nothing. You were right and I was wrong… I just wish I was able to have noticed it sooner…”

This revelation does shock Cavendish, but it also makes him feel in peace with something that was really bothering him and that was another one of the reasons he wasn’t enjoying his time on Heaven.

“So… You mean… The kidnapped person was Milo… And he isn’t dead…?”

“Yup, but he hates me now… Because of the stuff I ended up doing, and basically making you die”

Cavendish can just perceive how much Dakota has suffered as well, how shaken to his core he truly is despite how much he is trying to hide it, so he puts his hand on Dakota’s shoulder and speaking to him delicately.

“Dakota… I think he might forgive you someday but… What is more important is that he is alive and well… I technically failed to save him by my own efforts but… I am quite relieved that he is fine back on Earth… You revealing this to me makes me slighty happier… We might never be able to complete our dreams or hopes anymore... That doesn’t bother me as much however… As long as we can stay together…”

Dakota smiles wryly at his notion, thinking he isn’t gonna stick around.

“Oh… How I wish that was the case Cav… But my deal was that I would try to get some redemption and that’s it. I would go back… To Hell”

“WHAT!?” Cavendish shouts. “Why would you end up in Hell!? You have done so many wonderful things Dakota! And from what you have told me, you haven’t done anything that bad in your past to get you into that place!”

Dakota responds with a cold remark.

“Well… After I did to ya, to Milo, how I ended up making the Dakota’s get killed and they were counted as separate lives… It was enough for me to be sent to Hell… And… I just won’t be able to see you again…”

“N-no…” Cavendish denies it, he doesn’t want this to happen, he just got reunited with his best friend, he cannot just lose him now, this would be the final nail for his sanity. He would never be the same without Dakota. So he turns to the angel and pleads for Dakota’s stay.

“P-please angel! Let Dakota stay! He has done bad things now and I understand, but he is my friend, please! Let him stay with me! Or at least let him have his own paradise in Heaven! I beg of you!”

The heavenly creature just looks to the other side, not wanting to show his feelings and not giving a response. To Cavendish it is clear he can’t do anything about this.

“I’m… sorry Cavendish…” Dakota says while grabbing his arm, also in sorrow.

The trio stay in complete silence for a few seconds, until a very loud, grave tone and tall voice sounds from the sky.

“Now, do not fret my children”

The angel looks up to the sky, fully knowing who’s voice is that.

“M-my lord!”

It is the one and only: God.

Only with his voice he is able to announce his all mighty and all seeing presence, and he apparently wants to make a declaration.

“I have come here to clarify a few matters”

The former time travelers look up and are unable to see anything, but they definitely feel a spirit, an everlasting force, and also an unstoppable wave of love.

According to that book that Cavendish read, this is God’s true essence and both of them can feel it in all of it’s glory.

“A-are you God?” Asks Cavendish with a wavering voice.

“Indeed, I am, I have seen what the two of you have done in your lives, truly something special, I rarely see such a deep connection which started from two unkown individuals. This type of deep connection and love tends to be present on tightly firmed families. Friends are able to make this deep links but they unfortunately tend to break with time. The two of you however… You have surpassed any of those and reached an unbreakable bond”

Cavendish and Dakot after this statement gaze upon themselves, with a soft smile and feeling proud of that accomplishment.

“The two of you have also done many great things for your kind, Cavendish doing many attempts on trying to change the world or be a true hero in some way or another, just because he felt it was the right thing to do. Dakota doing the same but whenever it was possible, and understanding that not every single day he can be a hero. But when he does it can really matter. You have forged friendships that have changed lives for the better, these are traits that would deserve of a heavenly paradise, but as mentioned before, Dakota hasn’t been fully clean on some of his own actions, sometimes lying to get out of a situation, to himself and to others. Some of his decisions are also reprehensible. Wanting to keep you alive is a noble but also selfish goal, as it made Cavendish’s life better, but was selfish on just not letting him rest”

Dakota lowers his head and looks to the ground in shame.

“Sorry” He says to God.

God acknowledges his message.

“Do not worry my child, I will get to my conclusion briefly” Dakota inmediately wonders to himself what he ment with that and he tries to open his mouth to inquire a bit more. But no sound comes out. He instead shuts up and listens carefully, thinking that questions might be appropriate after the all mighty being ends with his analysis.

“Your actions taken after Cavendish deleted your memories without permission, which is also reprehensible” Cavendish glances quickly to the sky, also feeling guilty of the turmoil he caused. “Were also imprudent and petty. You wanted Cavendish to apologize because you _deserved_ an apology, and indeed you did, but the way you took was on a very harmful manner, and are what caused your demise and your friend’s demise. Even with all of this in mind however… You wanted to seek redemption, to make your mistakes be somewhat mitigated. You understand know that what you did was wrong, you understand that this hurt many, many people and that this damage might never be undone”

Dakota at this point is jut waiting for the worst to happen, to be sentenced to Hell for all eternity and never be able to see Cavendish ever again. He knows his mistakes have been massive and that they most likely won’t be undone, even for Cavendish’s sake, so he mentally resigns to all hope and closes his eyes to await for God’s judgement.

“Even with all of this in mind… I will let you stay in Heaven”

“HUH!?” This unsettles the pair. Why would he let Dakota stay in Heaven after all of the horrible things he caused?

“I will let you stay in Heaven because even with your current actions, you have done many good things to just undo your good nature and good heart. You are a good being that lost some of it’s way for some brief moments. After your life ended, and coming into grasp with what you did, you felt the need to try and fix whatever you did wrong. You knew you weren’t gonna be able to undo your mishaps, but you still went through with it. It was right in your heart and soul. To me, seeking for atonement of your sins is quite important. And you have shown me a 1-1 realization of the word. Even if one of them didn’t forgive you, with what you were able to do you tried. You haven’t forgiven yourself just yet and that is one of the hardest things someone can do, so I also do not fault you for that. But you got the forgiveness of two of your friends, and more importantly, you have the forgiveness from the person that mattered to you the most, and that person also cared for you the most on his life. That is good enough to let you stay alongside Cavendish”

Still in unbelievingness, the two men speak to God.

“G-God… You aren’t playing a trick on us are you? Can Dakota truly stay?” Cavendish asks.

“Y-yeah! You aren’t pulling a prank on us?” Dakota inquires on Cavendish’s question.

“Yes, Dakota can really stay in Heaven. I will never lie to my children”

Hearing these words makes them become weak, they crumble onto their knees with tears coming down from their eyes.

“THANK YOU! THANK YOU!”

The two of them scream at the godly presence and it acknowledges.

“Do not thank me, please, you are my children and I am supposed to be fair for all of you. If you will excuse me, I have to leave. I just want you to do one thing: Enjoy Heaven”

Suddenly, that energy dissipates in the clouds, not being present anymore.

The pair stay in gratitude and they get up from their knees, glaring at each other with a smile.

“Hey Cav… This isn’t how I would’ve wanted things to end, but if I am really gonna be with ya, I’m more than happy to stay here forever. How about you?”

The British man grins with a joyful smile and responds to the query.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, my dear Dakota, let us spend our time of peace in this wonderful place”

The two friends end up walking together with their hands resting on their shoulders.

Cavendish is the one directing where to go, and he wants to show Dakota the piano that was given to him.

“Let’s see my piano Dakota, I am sure you will love it, even though I was quite sad when I played it at first right now I feel invigorated and ready to play something for you, celebrating our reunion!”

“Wait, you can play the piano? How come I didn’t know that?”

This makes Balthazar giggle as they approach the stairs and start a new climb towards the golden musical device.

They finally arrive at the podium where the beautiful looking piano is standing.

Dakota looks at the instrument in awe and makes his jaw drop.

“Cav… It looks so shiny, and nice… And pure, it is the most beautiful instrument I have ever seen!”

Cavendish’s face turns red in modesty, it is a beautiful piano but he doesn’t want to gloat about it too much.

“I-indeed but don’t worry about that, let’s sit down and relax with the marvelous music this device can provide” Before he is able to take a seat however, his angel interrupts very quickly for a message.

“Cavendish! I-I’m sorry to intervene in your piano session but I got even more good news!” He states with a simper.

“Oh? Really now? What are the good news?” Cavendish insists in knowing the good news.

“The good news is that your versions that died, and the versions of Dakota that died were given their own paradise!”

“That sounds great” Cavendish says and Dakota smiles. At least his other versions are gonna have their own place to rest properly and not be on limbo.

“Yes, we decided to group them all together as each Dakota had it’s own Cavendish, and if those Cavendish’s are in there too, well they are gonna be able to find themselves quite easily, we can also help them out in case they are unable to do so, that was my message. Now you can enjoy your time here. I am… Quite happy the two of you got reunited, you can finally live without a worry anymore, although… I do apologize for your deaths, they weren’t ment to happen at this time”

Dakota answers with tranquility to the feathered angel’s worries.

“Eh, Don’t worry ‘bout it, I know Cav wanted to be a hero, but to me he already is, to Dr.Zone probably he already is, basically to many of your friends he is or was a hero and will never forget him, that’s whats important”

The creature’s concerns do start to fade away thanks to Dakota’s comment and he returns to his cheerful self.

“Hehe, you might be right Dakota, but anyway, hope to see you soon!” With a flap of his wings the angel takes off to the skies, leaving the pair behind.

“Very well, shall I begin?”

“Go nuts Cav, I wanna see those piano skills in action”

With a big wide grin on the two of them, Cavendish starts to play a very jubilant and pleasing tune. Balthazar and Vinnie sing along with just some syllables.

“La la la la, la la la la ra ra ra la la”

And thus, it ends this story.

It was very apparent that Dakota made horrible mistakes on this tale, and that he has payed the price for them, but even with all of this in mind, when somebody seeks for true redemption no matter if he is forgiven or not it can change how your life can end.

Now he understands it was all his fault and he tried to fix it.

Due to this however, his fate was changed for something better.

This wasn’t how their destinies were ment to end, but at least for Dakota, it was a better resolution than if he didn’t search for forgiveness.

Now him and his best friend will spend the rest of eternity together, singing along in Heaven, and neither of them would have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really hope you guys enjoyed this alternate ending, I definitely enjoyed writting quite a lot and I love super cheesy good endings. This was also quite the ride to write :P

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you guys enjoy this fic, this is basically a bad ending fanfic for Cavendish and Dakota, so get those napkins ready!


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